For many of us, our garden is a sanctuary from the stresses of modern life. It is a place to simply drift off into a peaceful
daydream, to read a book or magazine, to talk to a friend, to meditate, and of course for the pleasure of gathering flowers,
fragrant herbs, and sun-ripened fruits.
Today we are under seige from the constant stresses of modern life. In the medieval era, a seige was more than mental
stress. In an era with great civil disturbances, people could also be under physical seige. The gardens they created were
inward looking, a world of safety and beauty and abundance surrounded by protective walls.
Then as now, the size of the garden you possessed was often related to your wealth. The nobility, with extensive lands at
their command, had ornamental pleasure gardens called herbers, extensive ornamental orchards, and a large ornamental park
stocked with animals and birds to create a kind of Garden of Eden in which to stroll and be surrounded by nature. In addition they
often had a large hunting park, for amusement. Those of still ample means, although not of nobility, might have a herber and an orchard.
Merchants in the towns might possess only a herber. And it is the herber of the medieval garden that provided a retreat from a sometimes
threatening world, a place to dream, to read, to talk with friends, to hold a romantic tryst, to think, and to lift the spirit with the sensuous
pleasures of nature. They were just the kind of garden we now long for, a garden that feeds the soul, a small inward looking garden,
a peaceful jewel of a garden filled with gentle beauty and sweet simplicity. And they can be recreated on our own small plot.
The Albertus Magnus written in 1260 gives us a feeling for the beauty of the medieval garden:
‘Care must be taken that the lawn is of such a size that about it in a square may be planted every sweet smelling herb such as
rue and sage and basil, and likewise all dorts of flowers, as violet, columbine, lily, rose, iris, and the like. Between these herbs and the
turf, at the edge of the lawn, set square, let there be a higher bench of turf, flowering and lovely: and somewhere in the middle provide
seats..Upon the the lawn too against the heat of the sun trees should be planted or vines trained......with perfumed flowers and agreeable
shade, like grapevines, pears.apples, pomegranates, sweet bays, cypresses and such like. Behind the lawn there may
be a great diversity of medicinal and scented herbs...If possible a clean fountain of water in a stone basin should be in the midst.
It is delight...that is looked for in the pleasure garden.’
A common design for the herber was two adjoining gardens. The first was usually square and often divided in four by two crossed
paths. Garden beds were edged by low (30-60 cm) “wattle fences’. These were fences woven like ornamental basketwork from
easily bendable tree branches such as hazel or poplar. the gardens were filledwith fragrant and beautiful plants. Arbours, seats with
a cover overhead, were created with carpentry to provide shade and privacy and covered with climbers like roses and honeysuckle and
convolvulus. One or more sides of the garden might be surrounded by ‘alleis’, walks covered by a pergola so that it was possible to stroll
away from the heat of the sun These were also created by carpentry, and then covered by climbers like roses, honeysuckle, and convolvulus,
or grape vines. A water feature was also included in this garden. It might be a simple birdbath on a pedastel, or an ornamental welllhead, or a
small raised pool. A turfed seat was another feature. This was a raised bench seat, constructed of stone or brick. The seat was
planted with grass or fragrant herbs such as apple scented chamomile or creeping thymes planted into soil. As the soil drained quickly
after rain, the turf seat provided the sensation of sitting on a dry fragrant meadow. A turf seat is the centre piece of the herb garden at the world
famous Sissinghurst Castle garden created by Vita Sackville-West and her husband Harold Nicholson in Kent in England, and would
make a wonderful addition to modern herber.
The second part of such a garden was called a ‘mead’. This was an ornamental meadow, often planted with fruit trees in
orderly rows which would provide blossom in spring, fruit and shade in summer, and autumn colours. The trees were set in lush
grass scythed to manage its height, and spangled in spring and summer with lower growing flowery herbs such as wild strawberries,
fritillaries, small daffodils, daisies, primroses and cowslips, and bluebells.
Here are some of the plants that were regularly planted in the medieval garden:
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