MONASTIC GARDENING 
9 
Each department within the monastery was directed in a 
regular and orderly way, and was presided over by an officer, 
with set duties to perform, who had to keep the accounts of 
his office, and was responsible for its management. There 
was a Gardener, or Hortulanus, or Gardinarius, or Garden 
Warder, just as much as there was an Almoner, Sacristan, 
Precentor, or any other officer. 
In some instances the accounts of the Hortulanus exist, and 
further references to gardening matters are scattered through¬ 
out various chartularies. Two very perfect series are those of 
Norwich Priory and Abingdon Abbey, 1 and they are doubtless 
fair examples of the Gardeners’ accounts in the majority of 
monasteries. There are four accounts at Abingdon, the 
earliest for the year 1369-70. The Norwich series is far more 
numerous, as there are some thirty rolls, the earliest 1340, the 
last 1529, the first decade of the fifteenth century being well 
represented. 
These accounts show the receipts and expenses of the office, 
the cost of repairs, the money received from the few products 
sold ; but they throw no light on the processes of cultivation, 
nor do they particularize the plants which were grown. 
Like the other officers, or obedientiars, the Hortulanus had 
his “ famulus ” to assist in the work, and was also allowed to 
employ labourers, and money was forthcoming for their pay¬ 
ment from the rent of some small piece of land, or some tene¬ 
ments which belonged to the office. At Ramsey Abbey 2 there 
were two “ famuli ” in the garden, and their payment [circa 
1170 a.d.) was “ to each of them fourteen loaves ” and two 
acres of land. 3 But in spite of various small rents and money 
received from the surplus garden produce, or grain grown on 
the lands belonging to the garden office, the accounts do not 
1 Those at Norwich are only in MS. Those at Abingdon are printed 
by Camden Soc., Accounts of the Obedientiars of Abingdon Abbey, R. E. G. 
Kirk, 1892. 
2 Cavtularium Monasterii de Rameseia, Wm. Hart. List of Monastic 
officers. 
3 At Durham monastery the payment was to “ Robert Kyrvour, 
ortulanus, per annum 5s.,” together with a few other small payments 
amounting to about another 5s. [Durham Household Book , Surtees 
Society). 
