1 40 Gleanings in Old Garden Literature. 



helps to attest the small size of the fruit in 

 former times, goes back to the fifteenth or 

 even the fourteenth century ; it is as old as 

 the days of Lydgate. But the term was 

 also applied to a vessel for holding liquids. 

 Wolsey and the Prior of Dunmow are both 

 commemorated as regaling themselves on 

 strawberries and crearn. In 1549 a pottle 

 of strawberries is said to have cost ten- 

 pence, which is rather to be attributed to 

 some accidental circumstance than to any 

 improvement in the culture, for Henry VIII. 

 ordered 3*. %d. to be given to some peasants 

 who brought him what can only have been 

 the wild berries. 



From a Metrical Vocabulary of the 

 fourteenth century we may add the ban-nut 

 or walnut, the warden-pear, the poplar, the 

 wild vine, the juniper, the ivy, and the 

 bay-tree. 



The warden-pear was formerly much used 

 for cooking purposes, as well as for baking ; 

 and our ancestors in the time of Shakespeare 

 had warden-pies. One Quinby, of New 

 College, Oxford, they say, having been 



