The Book of Herbs, Rosalind Northcote [best books to read for self development TXT] 📗
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THE ARMS OF SAFFRON WALDEN.
CHAPTER IIIOF HERBS USED IN DECORATIONS, IN HERALDRY, AND FOR ORNAMENT AND PERFUMES
With myrtle spray,
And lily bells that trembling laughter fills,
And the sweet crocus gay,
With these blue hyacinth and the lover’s rose,
That she may wear—
My sun-maiden—each scented flower that blows
Upon her scented hair.
Trans. from Meleager.—W. M. Hardinge.
It is, perhaps, surprising in studying the history of common English herbs to find how many were the uses to which they were put by our forefathers. One reason of their eminence was that no doubt in pre-hygienic days they were more to be desired, but, besides this, something “delightful to smell to” seems to have been a luxury generally appreciated for its own sake. In his poem of the “Baron’s Wars,” Michael Drayton, by a casual reference, shows how much agreeable scents were valued, and the pains taken to procure them. He is speaking of Queen Isabella’s room.
Which left a sweetness on each thing it shone,
As ev’rything did to itself assume
The scent from them, and made the same their own,
So that the painted flowers within the room
Were sweet, as if they naturally had grown.
The light gave colours which upon them fell,
And to the colours the perfume gave smell.
And in describing the bewilderment of a “young, tender maid,” led through the magnificent court of some prince, he says she was:—
The furnitures and states, which all embroideries be,
The rich and sumptuous beds, with tester-covering plumes,
And various as the sutes, so various the perfumes.
OLD LABORATORY AT MR. HOOPER’S, 24 RUSSELL STREET, COVENT GARDEN
THE LARGE STILL IN THE CORNER IS FOR DISTILLING ROSE AND AROMATIC WATERS
THE SMALLER STILL IS FOR DISTILLING SPIRIT ESSENCES
In a discourse, intended to prove that the magic number five is perpetually appearing in all forms of nature, and that network is an equally ubiquitous design, Sir Thomas Browne mentions en passant, the “nosegay nets” of the ancients—that is, nets holding flowers, that were suspended from the head, to provide continuously a pleasant odour for the wearer. It is very nice to find a survival of the belief that scents affect the spirits and may be beneficial to the health, and in “Days and Hours in a Garden,” E. V. B. declares herself to be of that opinion. “Sweet Smells... have a certain virtue for different conditions of health,” she says. “Wild Thyme will renew spirits and vital energy in long walks under an August sun. The pure, almost pungent scent of Tea Rose, Maréchal Neil is sometimes invigorating in any lowness of... Sweet Briar promotes cheerfulness... Hawthorn is very doubtful and Lime-blossom is dreamy.... Apple-blossom must be added to my pharmacopœia of sweet smells. To inhale a cluster of Blenheim orange gives back youth for just half a minute after... it is a real, absolute elixir.”
The sacristan’s garden, devoted to growing flowers and herbs for the service of the church, has been already mentioned, and Henry VI. actually left in his will a garden to be kept for this purpose to the church of Eton College (Nichol’s “Wills of the Kings and Queens of England”). After the Reformation the practice of laying fresh green things about the churches was apparently not abandoned, for in 1618, James I. set forth a declaration permitting “Lawfull recreations after divine service, and allowed that women should have leave to carry rushes to the church for the decoring of it according to old custome.”[54] Rushes are still strewed on Whitsunday at the church of St Mary Radcliffe, in Bristol, and the day is often called “Rush-Sunday” there in consequence.
[54] Fuller’s “Church History,” Book X. 1655.
In the accounts of St Margaret’s, Westminster, there is a payment made for “herbs strewn in the church on a day of thanksgiving” in 1650. Coles (1656) says: “It is not very long since the custome of setting up Garlands in Churches, hath been left off with us, and in some places setting up of Holly, Ivy, Rosemary, Dayes, Yew, etc., in Churches at Christmas, is still in use.”[55] Later, the custom seems almost entirely to have dropped, and in an article in the Quarterly (1842), the writer is torn between pious aspirations and loyalty to the church views of the day: “We cannot but admire the practice of the Church of Rome, which calls in the aid of floral decorations on her festivals. If we did not feel convinced that it was the most bounden duty of the Church of England at the present moment to give no unnecessary offence by restorations in indifferent matters, we should be inclined to advocate, notwithstanding the denunciation of some of the early Fathers, some slight exceptions in the case of our own favourites.”
[55] “Art of Simpling.”
The decorations of English houses were much admired by Dr Levinus Lemmius in 1560, when he visited us. “And beside this, the neate cleanliness, the exquisite finenesse, the pleasaunt and delightfull furniture in every poynt for household, wonderfully rejoiced me; their chambers and parlours strawed over with sweet herbes refreshed me.”[56] Further on, he praises “the sundry sortes of fragraunte floures” about the rooms. Parkinson mentions wall-flowers and “the greater-flag” being used “in nosegayes and to deck up a house,” and Newton says they took branches of willow to trim up their parlours and dining roomes in summer, and did “sticke fresh greene leaves thereof about their beds for coolnesse.”[57] Sir Hugh Platt (1653) advised that “for summer-time your chimney may be trimmed with a fine bank of mosse... or with orpin, or the white flower called everlasting.... And at either end one of your flower or Rosemary pots.... You may also hang in the roof and about the sides of the room small pompions or cowcumbers pricked full of barley, and these will be overgrowne with greene spires, so as the pompion or cowcumber will not appear.... You may also plant vines without the walls, which being let in at quarrels, may run about the sides of your windows, and all over the sealing of your rooms.”[58] Herbs in image were sometimes hung round the room. Harrison mentions “arras worke, or painted cloths, wherein either diverse histories, or hearbes, beasts, knots, and such like are stained.” Of flowers thought specially suitable indoors Tusser (1577) gives a list: “Herbes, branches, and flowers for windows and pots,” and Bachelor’s Buttons, Sweet Briar, and “bottles, blue, red, and tawney” are among the forty he mentions. A separate list is set forth of twenty-one “Strewing Herbs,” and this includes Basil, Balm, Marjoram, Tansy, Germander, and Hyssop. The practice of strewing the floors with herbs and rushes, however, started long before his time. “At the Court of King Stephen, which exceeded in magnificence that of his predecessors ... and in houses of inferior rank upon occasions of feasting, the floor was strewed with flowers.... Becket, in the next reign, according to a contemporary author (Fitz-Stephen) ordered his hall to be strewed every day, in the winter with fresh straw or hay, and in summer with rushes or green leaves, fresh gathered; and this reason is given for it, that such knights as the benches could not contain, might sit on the floor without dirtying their cloaths.”[59] The contrast between the pomp of so large a following, and the simplicity of their accommodation affords an odd picture of the mingled stateliness and bareness in the great man’s household.
[56] Harrison’s “Description of England.” Ed. by Furnivall, 1877.
[57] “Herbal of the Bible,” 1587.
[58] “The Garden of Eden.”
[59] “Pegge’s Curalia.”
In the reign of Edward I., “Willielmus filius Willielmi de Aylesbury tenet tres virgatus terræ... per serjeantiam inveniendi stramen ad lectum Domini Regis et ad straminandum cameram suam et etiam inveniendi Domino Rege cum venerit apud Alesbury in estate stramen ad lectum suam et procter hoc herbam ad juncandam cameram suam.”[60] (William, son of William of Aylesbury, holds three roods of land... by serjeantry, of finding straw for the bed of our Lord the King and to straw his chamber... and also of finding for the King when he should come to Aylesbury in summer straw for his bed, and, moreover, grass or rushes to strew his chamber.) Though grass is the literal translation of herbam, it is quite possible, judging from old customs generally, that hay or sweet herbs, may be intended here. “It may be observed further that there is a relique of this custom still subsisting, for at Coronations the ground is strewed with flowers by a person who is upon the establishment called the Herb-Strewer, with an annual salary.” From this it appears that there were persons regularly appointed to strew herbs for the royal pleasure, but for what length of time the Herb-Strewer was an official actually living at Court, it is very difficult to discover. At the time of the Coronation of James II. and his Queen, Mary Dowle was “Strewer of Herbes in Ordinary to His Majesty,” and among the instructions issued before the ceremony were the following: “Two breadths of Blue Broad-cloth are spread all along the middle of the Passage from the stone steps in the Hall, to the Foot of the Steps in the Choir, ascending the Theatre, by order of the Lord Almoner of the Day, amounting in all 1220 yards; which cloth is strewed with nine Baskets full of sweet herbs and flowers by the Strewer of Herbs in Ordinary to His Majesty, assisted by six women, two to a Basket, each Basket containing two Bushels.” All the details of his Coronation were most carefully considered and finally settled “in solemn conclave in the presence of James II.,” says Roberts in his sketch of the Approaching Coronation of George II., and “little variation has taken place in the Ceremony since.” From a manuscript belonging to Mr Eyston, of East Hundred, Wantage, dated 1702, W. Jones (“Crowns and Coronations”) quotes an: “Order for a gown of scarlet cloth, with a badge of Her Majesty’s Cypher on it, for the Strewer of Herbs to Her Majesty, as was provided at the last Coronation.” This looks as if she played her part in the ceremony of crowning King William and Queen Mary, and was also present at the crowning of Queen Anne, though Roberts, in his “Complete Account of the Coronations of the Kings and Queens of England” does not mention her. In the State Archives is a “Warrant to the Master of the Great Wardrobe for delivering of scarlet cloth to Alice Blizard, herb strewer to Her Majesty,” dated 30th November 1713, showing that whether at that date she was continually at Court, or whether her services were confined to the day of Coronation, she was at anyrate officially recognised in the ordinary course of things, and not only when any very great ceremony was imminent. I cannot be sure if the Herb Strewer appeared at the Coronation of George I., but she certainly did at that of George II., and in the full accounts of the Coronation of George IV., which was celebrated with great magnificence, there are most
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