DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0067
CHAPTER III.
FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.
“ And in the gardin at the sonne uprist
She walketh up and down wher as hire list
She gathereth floures, party whyte and reede
To make a sotil gerland for hire heede.”
Chaucer, Knight's Tale.
REAT changes were taking place in England during the
latter half of the fourteenth, and beginning of the following,
century. Trades and industries increased, and in like manner
horticulture revived. During the years which had passed since
the Norman Conquest, the conquerors and conquered had
become welded into one nation, and this had not been effected
peacefully. But'' we now come to a period when the battles
were being fought on foreign soil, while the nation was enjoying
comparative peace at home. In the country itself, the poorer
sections of the community were gradually asserting their rights
against the lords of the soil. There was a class growing up,
of farmers who farmed lands, merely paying some yearly tribute
in service, or in kind, to their overlord. Round these small
farms and manors, gardens and orchards were planted, and
thus it can be seen how such movements would affect the
progress of gardening.
From incidental references in writings of the time it appears
that the poorer classes lived chiefly on vegetables, as the following
quotations from Langland serve to show :
“ Alle the pore peple pesecoddes fetten *
Benes and baken apples thei broujte in her lappes
Chibolles and cheruelles and ripe chiries manye.” fl
Again, he says, the poor folk
“ With grene poret and pesen to poysonn hunger thei thought.” fl
* Fetch.
fl Piers Ploughman.
fl Ibid.
FOURTEENTH AND FIFTEENTH CENTURIES.
“ And in the gardin at the sonne uprist
She walketh up and down wher as hire list
She gathereth floures, party whyte and reede
To make a sotil gerland for hire heede.”
Chaucer, Knight's Tale.
REAT changes were taking place in England during the
latter half of the fourteenth, and beginning of the following,
century. Trades and industries increased, and in like manner
horticulture revived. During the years which had passed since
the Norman Conquest, the conquerors and conquered had
become welded into one nation, and this had not been effected
peacefully. But'' we now come to a period when the battles
were being fought on foreign soil, while the nation was enjoying
comparative peace at home. In the country itself, the poorer
sections of the community were gradually asserting their rights
against the lords of the soil. There was a class growing up,
of farmers who farmed lands, merely paying some yearly tribute
in service, or in kind, to their overlord. Round these small
farms and manors, gardens and orchards were planted, and
thus it can be seen how such movements would affect the
progress of gardening.
From incidental references in writings of the time it appears
that the poorer classes lived chiefly on vegetables, as the following
quotations from Langland serve to show :
“ Alle the pore peple pesecoddes fetten *
Benes and baken apples thei broujte in her lappes
Chibolles and cheruelles and ripe chiries manye.” fl
Again, he says, the poor folk
“ With grene poret and pesen to poysonn hunger thei thought.” fl
* Fetch.
fl Piers Ploughman.
fl Ibid.