Differences in Modern and Medieval Approaches to Plants

Agnes deLanvallei March 2005

The ordinary 21^st century citizen can identify only a handful of plants. Food comes from grocery stores and medicines come from pharmacies. The tools and furniture handled in every day life are made of plastic or aluminum or some obscure alloy. When we walk outdoors, the environment is mostly buildings, with lawns and gardens of carefully chosen plants. The plants we can name are street trees, lawn grasses, garden flowers and foliage plants grown in buildings. We don't use them for anything except to look at. We don't expect them to be useful.

The ordinary 12^th century citizen could identify most of the plants in pasture and forest. My focus is Angevin England where I run four prosperous manors. Food is raised in the plot behind the buildings or gathered in the fields and woods. Medicines are raised in the physic garden or gathered in the fields and woods. The tools and furniture handled in every day life are made of local materials, usually wood, in the shop. When we walk outdoors, the environment is mostly land, with a few buildings. We plant and weed in the gardens and grow or cut some trees, but the rest is beyond our energy to arrange. Most of us can name virtually every plant we could encounter within a half-day's walk of the manor, and tell you what it is used for. We are told that God put them here for our use and that if we don't know what their use is, we haven't looked carefully enough for the signs that were put there to tell us.