Edible and medicinal plants in the cloister gardens of West Europe (800s –900s AD) (original) (raw)
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Plant foods are closely connected to cultural, social and economic aspects of human societies, both past and present. Food-preparation techniques and the etiquette of consumption involve complex interactions of natural resources and human cultures. During European prehistory, these changes included the shift to sedentism, the cultivation and domestication of plants, food storage, the production and exchange of alcoholic beverages and luxury foodstuffs, and the continuous adaptation of established culinary practices to newcomers in fields and gardens.
AUP, 2023
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This paper derives from research carried out on plant representations in Late Medieval religious art in southern central Europe. The uses of plants in most important Late Medieval religious festivals and customs in southern central Europe are described. Plants with festive connotations are identified and shown in their cultural contexts. The main goal of this research was to show how visual evidence, interpreted with the help of historical sources, could contribute to archaeobotanical research on Late Medieval plants and their use in festive occasions in the region in the later Middle Ages.
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European dried gardens from the 16th century have been traditionally associated with the emergence of early modern botany and its relation to the traditional genre of pharmacopeias. This study reviews a sample of the 37 known exemplars of these bound collections and argues that the design and development of these herbaria or dried gardens (orti sicci), as they were also known, reveal a broader set of questions on nature and about the relationships of humans with the natural world than the ones with which they have been linked. Based on the evidence of a diverse corpus of dried gardens—some richly bound, others composed over recycled paper, some with copious annotations, others with a seemingly random layout and distribution of plants—, this paper argues for a comparative reading of these books as a corpus that contributed significantly to early modern natural history and philosophy.
sites of the migration and the early Merovingian periods throw new light on agriculture and human diet of the Germanic tribe of the Alamanni in southwestern Germany from the 3rd to the 6th century A.D. Agriculture was based on the growing of a large variety of cereals: Hordeum, Triticum dicoccon, T. spelta, Secale cereale, T. monococcum, T. aestivum, Avena sativa and Panicum miliaceum. Hordeum was most frequent. It occurs as naked and as hulled barley. In a grave with wet preserved plant macrofossils dated to the 6th century in Trossingen, Hordeum distichon was also present. In addition, the Alamanni cultivated the oil and fibre plants Linum usitatissimum, Papaver somniferum, Cannabis sativa, Camelina and Brassica rapa, as well as the pulses Lens culinaris and Pisum sativum. More surprising were finds of vegetables and spices. Among them, Juniperus communis and Humulus lupulus could have been gathered in the wild, but Coriandrum sativum, Apium graveolens and Satureja montana must have been cultivated in gardens. In addition to wild gathered material Pyrus, Malus, Prunus avium and Ficus carica also occurred, which were most probably grown in orchards or were even imported. Therefore the Alamanni were not only farmers growing cereals and other field crops, but they also had gardens and orchards were they grew vegetables, spices and fruits. Most probably they learned horticulture from the Romans when they settled near the border of the Roman Empire. This investigation shows in an impressive way how much more information can be gathered when waterlogged plant material is available, especially concerning fruits and spices.
Spicing up life in northwestern Europe: exotic food plant imports in the Roman and medieval world
Vegetation History and Archaeobotany, 2010
This research investigates the introduction and trade of numerous exotic food plants across northwestern Europe during the Roman and medieval periods. Data were collected from all available archaeobotanical records on taxa that cannot grow in the study area or which require considerable efforts for their cultivation, together with relevant archaeological information (date, site type, context, status) to put the results in context. The results showed that many true imports were completely absent from archaeological contexts. This was due to a variety of reasons, such as poor preservation and limited access according to economic and/or cultural factors. A number of other exotic spices, fruits, vegetables, nuts and cereals, however, were identified in the study area and period. Analysis of their social, spatial and temporal occurrence indicated that different groups of people had access to these exotics and were responsible for their dispersal in different periods, but despite their fluctuating fortunes, their use remained generally exclusive. This study of exotic food plant imports highlights their value in understanding socioeconomic impacts and changes in past societies. Keywords Exotic food plants Á Imports Á Northwestern Europe Á Roman Á Medieval Communicated by C.C. Bakels.
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The 16th century was a golden age for botany, a time when numerous naturalists devoted themselves to the study and documentation of plant diversity. A prominent figure among them was the German physician, botanist, and traveler Leonhard Rauwolf (1535?–1596), famous for his luxurious book herbarium containing plants from the Near East. Here we focus on the less studied, early book herbaria of Rauwolf. These form a three-volume plant collection bound in leather and gold, which contains over 600 plants that Rauwolf collected between 1560 and 1563 in S. France and N. Italy when he was a student of medicine. We show the botanical value of Rauwolf’s early book herbaria, exemplified by two exotic American specimens, namely one of the oldest surviving specimens of tobacco (Nicotiana rustica), collected in Italy, and the oldest known French record of prickly pear (Opuntia ficus-indica). We discuss Rauwolf’s professional botanical network during his student years and suggest that the famous S...