HERBS USED IN DECORATIONS, ETC. 105 



mentions -wall-flowers and " the greater-flag" being used 

 " in nosegayes and to deck up a house," and Newton says 

 they took branches of willow to trim up their parlours and 

 dining roomes in summer, and did " sticke fresh greene 

 leaves thereof about their beds for coolnesse." ^ Sir Hugh 

 Piatt (1653) advised that for summer-time your chimney 

 may be trimmed with a fine bank of mosse ... or with 

 orpin, or the white flower called everlasting . . . And at 

 either end one of your flower or Rosemary pots. . . . You 

 may also hang in the roof and about the sides of the 

 room small pompions or cowcumbers pricked full 

 of barley, and these will be overgrowne with greene 

 spires, so as the pompion or cowcumber will not appear. 

 . . . You may also plant vines without the walls, which 

 being let in at quarrels, may run about the sides of your 

 windows, and all over the sealing of your rooms." ^ 

 Herbs in image were sometimes hung round the room. 

 Harrison mentions " arras worke, or painted cloths, 

 wherein either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, 

 knots, and such like are stained." Of flowers 

 thought specially suitable indoors Tusser (1577) gives a 

 list : " Herbes, branches, and flowers for windows and 

 pots," and Bachelor's Buttons, Sweet Briar, and " bottles, 

 blue, red, and tawney " are among the forty he mentions. 

 A separate list is set forth of twenty-one " Strewing 

 Herbs," and this includes Basil, Balm, Marjoram, Tansy, 

 Germander, and Hyssop. The practice of strewing 

 the floors with herbs and rushes, however, started long 

 before his time. " At the Court of King Stephen, 

 which exceeded in magnificence that of his predecessors 

 . . . and in houses of inferior rank upon occasions of 

 feasting, the floor was strewed with flowers. . . . 

 Becket, in the next reign, according to a contemporary 

 author (Fitz-Stephen) ordered his hall to be strewed 

 every day, in the winter with fresh straw or hay, and in 



1" Herbal of the Bible," 1587. ^ uThe Garden of Eden." 



