Medieval garden

Medieval gardens in Europe were widespread, but our very incomplete knowledge of them is better for those of elites than the common people, who probably mostly grew for food and medicine. The range of ornamental plants available was far narrower than in later periods. The term ‘garden’ refers to the ‘garth’, or enclosure, required around areas valued for their contents or their privacy. Every early garden manual starts with advice on how to form its defence, either by water, hedge or wall; elites wanted to have walled gardens. The skills required by gardeners, who tended to be better paid than other manual workers, included those of vineyard attendants, fruiterers, herb gardeners or makers of arbours.

The cultures which settled in the Roman Empire north of the Alps in the Age of Migrations appear to have had little tradition of gardening, but there was probably some continuity with sophisticated Roman gardening south of the Alps and in Romanized populations, such as the Gallo-Roman areas in southern France. In this context monastic gardens were important, especially in the Early Middle Ages, but are not covered here.

The gardens of the Middle Ages treated below also exclude the Islamic garden traditions of the Umayyad Caliphate, which by 714 had conquered all of the Iberian Peninsula except the northern coast, and the ensuing Caliphate of Cordoba. Cordoba itself was prominent in the Islamic Golden Age, and Christian Europe owed much in science, medicine and botany to exchanges in times of peace. Muslim rule in Spain was not fully extinguished until 1492. Sicily too fell under Arab control until the Norman County of Sicily was established in 1071.

The Christian world included most of the territory of Europe, with its many languages and cultures, and yet the authority of the Pope, the multinational organisation of the religious houses and the dynastic links between the many ruling houses bound it together, despite the frequent squabbles, so that the culture of gardens was a largely shared tradition over the period. There have been numerous attempts over the last century to recreate them, but "no medieval garden survives in anything remotely like original form". Naturally the climatic differences between northern parts of Europe and Mediterranean areas dictated many differences, but from the 10th century until about 1300 at least, Europe enjoyed the Medieval Warm Period, which helped with some tender plants in northern areas.

Knowledge of medieval gardens is hampered by the rarity of physical and archaeological remains, although there are archaeological studies about them; also by the paucity of reliable visual evidence. That which exists is principally from miniatures in illuminated manuscripts, few earlier than the fifteenth century. Most were intended to illustrate the section for the calendar of saints in luxury psalters and books of hours, which often gave a page to each month, illustrated opposite with miniatures showing the Labours of the Months, mostly the farming activities which dominated the medieval economy, but sometimes also gardening. These were fanciful in nature, though sometimes with incidental realism. The quantity and level of detail shown in gardening-related miniatures, especially from Flanders, increased sharply from about 1475 until the tradition finally expired around the 1530s. This is beyond the usual definition of the Middle Ages, but new Renaissance ideas and plants had barely reached the northern centres of illumination by then.

Images of the Virgin Mary in her hortus conclusus ("enclosed garden") and the "garden of love", a popular subject in 15th-century engravings by Master E. S. (d. c. 1468) and others, are explicitly set in gardens. The Annunciation increasingly comes to be set in or beside a garden, often with Mary in a loggia and the Archangel Gabriel in the garden outside. Other biblical subjects often given a garden setting are Susanna and the Elders, and Bathsheba in her bath.

The monastic and palatial records of European early medieval gardens suggest that they were mainly intended for growing culinary or medicinal herbs. The concept of the garden of pleasure barely existed until the high middle ages, and when it did, they were intended to provide rest and pleasure to the senses. By the early Renaissance period, the emphasis switched from relaxation to display. Sophisticated garden-making was already underway in the Italian Renaissance garden and the Gardens of the French Renaissance especially at the transition from the Late Middle Ages to the Renaissance. In England, the new Tudor dynasty after 1485 brought a style influenced by Burgundy and France, but that soon developed distinctive elements in its knot gardens and carved heraldic beasts on poles. Until about 1540 this style was restricted to royal gardens and those of a small court circle.

Meanwhile, lower down the social scale, English county quarter sessions would record a purchase of freehold land from the twelfth century via a fine of lands, and gardens were listed alongside messuages, and arable and woodland acreage, confirming that gardens were not just for high-status establishments but were increasingly normal accompaniments to those of rector, squire and farmer, contributing to the medieval diet. One study suggests that almost every cottage would have had a garden, however small, but most garden produce was for consumption rather than sale, which is why gardens appear infrequently in account books.