[Herbalist] Re: Tussie-Mussies- Poesys, etc.

[Kathleen H. Keeler]

Jadwiga

> >    One of the things I find the most interesting is Goody's argument that
> > Christianity rejected flowers in much of the first half of Period because it
> > was trying to distance itself from pagan customs.
>
> But flower gardens, etc. were cultivated in monasteries (for use in
> church) by the time of Walafrid of Strabo 809-849.

Yes, and I'd want to work through all the literature myself, with particular
attention to time and place, secular and sacred, before truly buying the theory.
But Goody is detailed and thorough.

Goody considers references to flowers between eg 300-900 in about a dozen pages and
notes that in many cases they are carried over from the Latin works that were
preserved.

Of Walafrid Goody says (p. 129): "of the 29 plants mentioned in Walahfrid's poem,
which appears to be based on the metre of Virgil's Georgics, most are herbs that
are included for medicinal rather than purlely culinary purposes.  Of "flowers" we
find only four, apart from flowering fruit trees, namely the iris, poppy, lily and
rose.  For the last two he presents a set of symbolic associations that are largely
ecclesiastical.  Otherwise the literary meanings of flowers are developed only in
shadowy fashion."

My memory of the development of gardens has even those being  rare in early Period,
if you distinguish a garden from a field.  Of course they raised crops and grew
plants to do that, but the sheltered pleasant place required getting ahead of
life's necessities, which didn't happen until intervals of relative prosperity.
(If you had to have a stockade, and everyone ran inside it at regular intervals,
you couldn't do much with plants in there.)

I was just travelling, visiting cities.  City people buy flowers (and vegetables).
I have yard enough to grow my own plants. But if I lived in a rural area, I
wouldn't bother with growing some of the things I do, because I could gather them
along country roads.  In sparsely populated early Medieval Europe, you gathered
flowers and herbs on the roadside, no need to plant them.  What's the logic of
gardens?  Did they develop because people wanted to grow nonlocal plants?

> >   I have long wanted to find the preChristian names for flowers.  There was a
> > lot of "political correctness" applied by the Church.
>
> Try the anglo-saxon herbals for some alternative common names.

yes, I just haven't been systematic

> Does Goody give evidence that the 'our lady' common names were imposed on
> the populace by churchmen, rather than being added to the selection of
> common names that plants were known by?

No.  I added the political correctness concept.  He merely commented on very
Christian names for plants and the subsequent secularization with the Reformation.
The original work I looked up (Anonymous, 1863 Quarterly Review 114:210) was
disappointing because it read like a 19th century gentleman's discourse, which
wasn't what I wanted.  I haven't gone after Goody's other references.  (yet)

> > And sometimes you can find names like "Jupiter's beard" or "Thor's beard"
> > (alternate names of hensand chickens), which makes you think that the same
> > set of plants' names probably rang with Freya and Thor once.
>
> Actually, those names might have been Renaissance inventions, rather than
> genuine pagan ones.\

Rats, you are likely right!  Tho that's the sort of thing Anonymous published
about.

Agnes