OF HERB GARDENS 7 



should be covered with plants " of a fragrant savoure," such 

 as rosemary, and that they should be so constructed " that 

 the Owner's friends sitting in the same may the freelier 

 see and beholde the beautie of the garden to theyr great 

 delyght." 



What they grew in the fifteenth-century herb gardens 

 can easily be ascertained. The earliest original English 

 treatise on gardening extant is a manuscript now in the 

 Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. It is called The 

 Feate of Gardening, and was written by Mayster Jon Gardener 

 in 1440. Miss Amherst gives a complete list of the herbs 

 which Mayster Jon Gardener directs to be grown. They 

 include strawberries (wild strawberries, of course), hyssop, 

 woodruff, betony, borage, henbane, lavender, southernwood, 

 tansy, thyme, violets, waterliles, hollyhocks, yarrow, mint, 

 rue, roses, saffron, camomile, foxgloves, centaury, agrimony, 

 Herb Robert, lily candidum, wormwood, sage, horehound, 

 groundsel, hart's tongue fern, pimpernel, clary, comfrey, 

 valerian and cowslips, besides many others. There is in 

 the British Museum a fifteenth-century manuscript (Sloane 

 MS. 1201) which is a book of cookery receipts, and this 

 gives a complete list of herbs used in cooking, and in addition 

 to those mentioned in Mayster Jon Gardener's enumeration; 

 this list includes Alexanders, mugwort, basil, bugloss, burnet, 

 chervil, caraway, chives, daises, dittany, dandelion, dill, 

 elecampane, eyebright, agrimony, fennel, marigold, gilly- 

 flowers, germander, borage, mercury, mallow, mint, mar- 

 joram, nettles, orage, parsley, primroses, rocket, savory, 

 smallage, sorrel, sow-thistle, vervain, rosemary and roses. 

 These two lists give a very fair idea of the herbs grown in 

 an ordinary fourteenth or fifteenth-century garden, and tne 

 vision of the sweet, homely flowers with their delicious scents 

 rises before one, when one reads Chaucer's description in 

 the Romaunt of the Rose. 



" Ful gay wis al the ground, and queynt 

 And poudred as men had it peynt, 

 With many a fresh and sundry flour 

 That casten up a ful good savour." 



