The Medieval Garden
The Medieval Garden by Sylvia Landsberg, published by British Museum Press in 1996, offers a detailed exploration of gardens from the medieval period. This 144-page work delves into how to write about gardens that no longer exist, utilizing contemporary manuscripts, art, and archaeological studies to reconstruct these historical spaces. Landsberg, a garden historian and lecturer, presents her findings alongside reproductions of medieval illuminated manuscripts, paintings, etchings, and woodcuts, spanning from the time of Charlemagne to the onset of the Renaissance in England.
Readers will find a comprehensive analysis of medieval horticultural practices, supported by hypothetical plans and diagrams derived from various documentary sources, poetry, and texts related to cookery and social life. The book also includes lists of plants inferred from visual evidence and the work of John Harvey, who linked medieval plant names to modern equivalents. In the final section, Landsberg discusses the process of re-creating medieval gardens and provides a list of gardens to visit, some of which she designed herself. This edition serves as a valuable resource for those interested in gardening history and the evolution of garden design.
Official synopsis Publisher
How does one write about gardens that no longer exist? Landsberg, a garden historian and lecturer who has designed several 13th to 16th century-style gardens, re-creates medieval gardens by analyzing contemporary manuscripts and art, the results of recent archaeological studies, and the few remaining fragments of gardens and surviving horticultural practices from that period. She includes dozens of reproductions of medieval illuminated manuscripts, paintings, etchings, and woodcuts to illustrate gardens from the time of Charlemagne to the beginning of Renaissance gardens in England. These are fleshed out with hypothetical plans and diagrams pieced together from documentary sources, poetry, and texts on cookery, medicine, and social life. The lists of plants included in the gardens are deduced from the visual evidence but are mainly taken from the work of John Harvey (e.g., Medieval Gardens, 1982) who unambiguously equated almost every medieval plant name with plants still available. The last third of the book discusses re-creating medieval gardens and provides a list of gardens to visit, some of them designed by the author. Recommended for all gardening history collections.
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