Hortulus · Capitulare de villis
Sage
Salvia officinalis
The plant Walahfrid put first, before all the others in his garden.
Turn the leaf →Circa 820
Sixteen beds beside the infirmary, each with its plant named.
The Plan of St Gall is the only architectural drawing to survive from the early Middle Ages. Among its buildings, beside the infirmary and the physician's house, it shows a small rectangular garden divided into sixteen beds — and it writes the name of a plant in each one. The drawing calls it the herbularius.
Nobody knows whether that garden was ever dug. What survives instead is the writing around it: a pharmacopoeia copied at Lorsch around 795, a poem by an abbot who kept his own garden at Reichenau and described every plant in it, and an imperial order listing what was to be grown on every royal estate.
This is what those texts say, plant by plant. It is not what they are right about.
The plan · sixteen beds
a diagram of the arrangement, not a facsimile of the drawing
ISageSalvia officinalisIIRueRuta graveolensIIIWormwoodArtemisia absinthiumIVFennelFoeniculum vulgareVLovageLevisticum officinaleVIWhite horehoundMarrubium vulgareVIIHyssopHyssopus officinalisVIIIRosemaryRosmarinus officinalisIXOpium poppyPapaver somniferumXParsleyPetroselinum crispumXICorianderCoriandrum sativumXIIAnisePimpinella anisumXIIICuminCuminum cyminumXIVBlack cuminNigella sativaXVElecampaneInula heleniumXVIMarshmallowAlthaea officinalis
Every bed is planted. A bed is filled only when one of the founding texts names the plant and a plate old enough to be out of copyright exists to show it. A red mark means the leaf carries a warning.
Hortulus · Capitulare de villis
Rue
Ruta graveolens
Grown as a defence against poison — and genuinely dangerous to handle.
Caution — this plant is genuinely dangerous. The leaf explains how.
Turn the leaf →
.jpg){kind=link}
Hortulus
Wormwood
Artemisia absinthium
Proverbially the bitterest plant in the garden.
Caution — this plant is genuinely dangerous. The leaf explains how.
Turn the leaf →
Hortulus · Capitulare de villis
Fennel
Foeniculum vulgare
In both founding lists, and in the kitchen as often as the infirmary.
Turn the leaf →
Hortulus · Capitulare de villis
Lovage
Levisticum officinale
The tallest thing in the bed, and the most pungent.
Turn the leaf →
Hortulus
White horehound
Marrubium vulgare
A bitter plant of dry, poor ground, kept in gardens for centuries.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Hyssop
Hyssopus officinalis
Ordered planted on every royal estate, and named in scripture.
Caution — this plant is genuinely dangerous. The leaf explains how.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Rosemary
Rosmarinus officinalis
A Mediterranean plant ordered grown far north of where it thrives.
Turn the leaf →
Hortulus · Capitulare de villis
Opium poppy
Papaver somniferum
Grown openly in the monastery garden, and ordered planted on every royal estate.
Caution — this plant is genuinely dangerous. The leaf explains how.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Parsley
Petroselinum crispum
On the royal list as a crop, and the plant most often mistaken for something lethal.
Caution — this plant is genuinely dangerous. The leaf explains how.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Coriander
Coriandrum sativum
A Mediterranean seed crop the Carolingian estates were told to grow in the north.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Anise
Pimpinella anisum
Named in the royal ordinance, and one of the oldest seed crops in cultivation.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Cumin
Cuminum cyminum
On the estate list despite having almost no chance of ripening north of the Alps.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Black cumin
Nigella sativa
Listed in the ordinance as git — a name that has since detached from the plant.
Turn the leaf →
Capitulare de villis
Elecampane
Inula helenium
The largest plant on the royal list, and the one that most looks like a weed.
Caution — this plant is genuinely dangerous. The leaf explains how.
Turn the leaf →
.jpg){kind=link}
Capitulare de villis
Marshmallow
Althaea officinalis
A plant of salt marshes, ordered grown inland, and the origin of a word for a sweet.
Turn the leaf →Why so few plants?
Because these are the ones the founding texts actually name and the ones for which a public-domain plate exists. Adding plants the sources do not mention, or illustrating them with a modern photograph or a generated picture, would make a longer garden and a worse record. 16 leaves that can each be checked are worth more than eighty that cannot.
The texts this comes from →