DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0127
EARLY TUDOR GARDENS.
305
all the money for the payment of labourers passed through
the head-gardener’s hands. The labourers received 6d., 4<i.,
or 3d. a day, or even 2d. a day if they were given food.
The weeding was usually done by women, and 3d. or 2d. a
day was the ordinary wage.*
Garden tools have not changed much since the earliest
times. The spade and rake we now use are much the same
as those of Tudor days. Tusser, in the following passage,
enumerates the tools then in use t:—
“ Now set doo aske watering with pot or with dish
new sowne doo not so, if ye doo as I wish
Through cunning with dible, rake, mattock and spade
by line and by leuell, trim garden is made.”
We know the cost of these tools from various accounts. The
prices ranged from 4b. to is. J
Probably many of the tools were home-made. Fitzherbert,
* 1530.—“5 labourers and 15 women weeders in the garden and the
orchard;” again, “20 women weeders, 2 labourers, and 2 mowers”—a list
of the names of the weeders follows, and the men received qd. per day, the
women 3d.—Hampton Court Accounts.
April 23rd (1530).—“ Paid to two women rooting up unprofitable herbs
(extirpantibus herbas inutiles) in the garden for three days, i6d.”
June 6th.—“ Paid to Margaret Hall, cleansing the garden, 3d.”
June 23rd.—“Joan Fery, working for three days, lod.”
August 19th.—“ Paid to Agnes Stringer, working for two days with a
half, 7d.”
Several more entries of women gardeners follow these : “ Paid for
bread and drink and herrings and other things (for) the gardeners, all
women, as appears by the book of expenses of the second term in the
seventh week, 2s. ijd.”—-Cardinal's College, Oxford.
“3 whemen for wedyng, 6d.”—Le Strange, Household Books.
f Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie.
| Hampton Court, March, 1533. Item for three iron rakes serving for the
King’s new garden at 6d. the piece—i8d. Item for a hatchet serving for the
said garden, 6d. Item for three new knives to shred the quicksets in the new
garden at 3d. the piece, gd. Item for six pieces of round line to measure and
set forth the new garden, I2d. Item for two cutting hooks, 2s. Item for two
cutting knives, qd. Item for two rakes, i6d. Item for two chisels, 6d. Item
for a graffing saw, qd. The price paid for a spade at Hunstanton, in Norfolk,
on July 7th, 1538, was 8d., and on December 1st, in the same year, 3d. and
“for a hattchett, a rake and a parying yearne (=paring-iron) for the garden,
rod. March nth, I5q3.”—Le Strange, Household Books.
305
all the money for the payment of labourers passed through
the head-gardener’s hands. The labourers received 6d., 4<i.,
or 3d. a day, or even 2d. a day if they were given food.
The weeding was usually done by women, and 3d. or 2d. a
day was the ordinary wage.*
Garden tools have not changed much since the earliest
times. The spade and rake we now use are much the same
as those of Tudor days. Tusser, in the following passage,
enumerates the tools then in use t:—
“ Now set doo aske watering with pot or with dish
new sowne doo not so, if ye doo as I wish
Through cunning with dible, rake, mattock and spade
by line and by leuell, trim garden is made.”
We know the cost of these tools from various accounts. The
prices ranged from 4b. to is. J
Probably many of the tools were home-made. Fitzherbert,
* 1530.—“5 labourers and 15 women weeders in the garden and the
orchard;” again, “20 women weeders, 2 labourers, and 2 mowers”—a list
of the names of the weeders follows, and the men received qd. per day, the
women 3d.—Hampton Court Accounts.
April 23rd (1530).—“ Paid to two women rooting up unprofitable herbs
(extirpantibus herbas inutiles) in the garden for three days, i6d.”
June 6th.—“ Paid to Margaret Hall, cleansing the garden, 3d.”
June 23rd.—“Joan Fery, working for three days, lod.”
August 19th.—“ Paid to Agnes Stringer, working for two days with a
half, 7d.”
Several more entries of women gardeners follow these : “ Paid for
bread and drink and herrings and other things (for) the gardeners, all
women, as appears by the book of expenses of the second term in the
seventh week, 2s. ijd.”—-Cardinal's College, Oxford.
“3 whemen for wedyng, 6d.”—Le Strange, Household Books.
f Five Hundred Pointes of Good Husbandrie.
| Hampton Court, March, 1533. Item for three iron rakes serving for the
King’s new garden at 6d. the piece—i8d. Item for a hatchet serving for the
said garden, 6d. Item for three new knives to shred the quicksets in the new
garden at 3d. the piece, gd. Item for six pieces of round line to measure and
set forth the new garden, I2d. Item for two cutting hooks, 2s. Item for two
cutting knives, qd. Item for two rakes, i6d. Item for two chisels, 6d. Item
for a graffing saw, qd. The price paid for a spade at Hunstanton, in Norfolk,
on July 7th, 1538, was 8d., and on December 1st, in the same year, 3d. and
“for a hattchett, a rake and a parying yearne (=paring-iron) for the garden,
rod. March nth, I5q3.”—Le Strange, Household Books.