30 THE WILD-FLOWERS OF SELBORNE 



cabbage, for they called the month of February Sprout- 

 cale, but, as White observes, "long after their days 

 the cultivation of vegetables was little attended to." 

 In the Middle Ages most of the monasteries and re- 

 ligious houses had their herb - gardens, where they 

 cultivated " simples " for the sake of the sick, and 

 doubtless " pot-herbs " for the use of the brethren, 

 but to what extent it is difficult to determine. In the 

 few monastic Diet-rolls that have been discovered 

 while the consumption of mushrooms, both in summer 

 and winter, is shown to have been enormous, there is 

 an almost entire silence with regard to vegetables. It 

 is possible, however, that the convent garden being 

 under the care of the hortulanus, or gardener, this 

 item might have appeared in a separate roll. With 

 the revival of botanical learning in the sixteenth cen- 

 tury, when physic gardens were established, not only 

 at the Universities, but also by private personages, a 

 great impetus was undoubtedly given to the cultivation 

 of vegetables, and many new kinds were introduced 

 into the country, yet the movement cannot be said to 

 have touched the habits of the poorer people. Still, it 

 would be a mistake to suppose that the labourers of 

 the olden time were entirely destitute of green food. 

 It seems to be beyond dispute that the use of certain 

 wild plants as vegetables was general among our fore- 

 fathers. A considerable number of our indigenous 

 British plants are useful vegetables, and in days when 

 large tracts of country were entirely uncultivated must 

 have existed in large quantities ; and these plants, 

 known as " pot-herbs," took the place of garden-stuff 

 in Mediaeval England. We propose to consider in 

 this paper some of these indigenous pot-herbs which 

 may still be found in their native haunts, and which 



