17C Garden 1609

1609 Month of April Print made by Adriaen Collaert After Jacques Callot After Joos de Momper  

17C Garden 1614

APRIL print Made & Published by Hendrik Hondius II 1614

17C Gardens 1689

1687 April Crispijn van de Passe (I), Maerten de Vos, 1574 - 1687

17C Discovering a Garden in a Painting Background

Anonymous Artist - Spring with Flowers & a Garden in the Background. Madrid, Museo del Prado. 1601-1650

Spring & "springtime" refer to the ecological, environmental season, and also to ideas of rebirth, rejuvenation, renewal, resurrection & regrowth.

17C Garden 1610

1610 Twelve months  Jacques Callot (Print made by) Adriaen Collaert (After) Joos de Momper (After) 

Allegory 1700s Harvesting

Jan Josef Horemans the Elder (Dutch artist, 1682-1759) Summer

Picking Apples - Autumn 1700s

1750s Autumn; print; John Bowles (Published by); James McArdell (Print made by); 1753-1766; London

Picking Apples 1700s

1778 Autumn Carington Bowles (Published by) John Collet (After) 1778-1779 London

1609 Working in the Garden & with the Sheep

1609 Month of June Twelve months June print Jacques Callot (Print made by) Adriaen Collaert (After) Joos de Momper (After) 1609-1610

Preparing flax for linen 1515

1515 Da Costa Hours, in Latin Illuminated by Simon Bening (1484–1561) Belgium, Bruges, Preparing flax for linen

16C Farm Chores

Francesco Bassano the Younger (1563-1570) Farm Chores in April

Pruning 1580

1580 Pruning Italian School The Labours of the Months

Wages for Farm Labor - Harvesting by Sebastian Vrancx (1573-1647)

 Sebastian Vrancx (Flemish artist, 1573-1647) Summer

The Black Death of 1348 killed a large number of the peasant population. This meant that there were not enough peasants to work in the fields. Landowners desperate for workers to harvest their crops began offering wages to anyone who would work on their land. Peasants were, for the first time, able to offer their services to the landowner that would pay the highest wage.

In the Garden- Jan Saenredam (Dutch printmaker, c 1565-1607)

 Jan Saenredam (Dutch printmaker, c 1565-1607) The Four Seasons - Summer

Making Hay 1515 Illuminated Manuscript by Simon Bening (1484–1561)

1515 Da Costa Hours, in Latin Illuminated by Simon Bening (1484–1561) Belgium, Bruges, c 1515 Making Hay

Women Work in the Fields in addition to Her Other Chores

If the husband has sheep of his own, then his wife may have some of the wool, to make her husband & herself some clothes... she may also take wool to spin for the cloth makers. That way she can earn her own living, & still have plenty of time to do other work... It is the wife's occupation to winnow corn, to make malt, to wash clothes, to make hay & to cut corn. In time of need she should help her husband fill the dung-cart, drive the plough, & load the hay & corn. She should also go to the market to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, pigs, geese & corn. & also to buy the things needed for the household. haymaking.

William FitzHerbert, Book of Husbandry (c. 1140)

Taking a Break during the Harvest 1585

Lucas van Valckenborch (Flemish artist, 1535-1597) Summer 1585

Harvesting Grain 1568 after Étienne Delaune (French artist, 1518-1595)

 Anonymous woodcut after 1568 Étienne Delaune (French artist, 1518-1595) Labours of the Months 

The timing of the harvest in the Middle Ages was vitally important.  If the wheat was too dry, the grain would fall off.  If it was too wet, the grain would rot.  To ensure that his own crops did not go to waste, the lord of the manor could demand extra labour services called "boon-work" during harvest time.  Boon-work was hated by the peasants, as it delayed their own harvesting & could cause their own crops to be ruined.  As the peasants had to give about half their crop away as rent & taxes, they needed to farm a large area of land to provide an adequate diet for their families.  People dying of starvation was not unusual in the Middle Ages. This was especially true when bad weather led to a poor harvest.

Harvesting by Sebastian Vrancx (Flemish artist, 1573-1647)

Sebastian Vrancx (Flemish artist, 1573-1647) Allegory of the Season Summer

Harvesting - Traditional Farm Work

1580 Harvesting Grain Italian School The Labours of the Months 6 June

Grain agriculture in ancient Rome provided bread for everyman's table & was idealized among the social elite as a way of life. Cicero considered farming the best of all Roman occupations. In his treatise On Duties, he declared that "of all the occupations by which gain is secured, none is better than agriculture, none more profitable, none more delightful, none more becoming to a free man." When one of his clients was derided in court for preferring a rural lifestyle, Cicero defended country life as "the teacher of economy, of industry, & of justice." Cato wrote "when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: 'Good husband good farmer'; it is from the farming class that the bravest men & the sturdiest soldiers come."  Cato, Columella, Varro & Palladius wrote handbooks on farming.

Staple crops included wheat, emmer, spelt, & barley, all of them used for bread, the mainstay of every Roman table. In his treatise De agricultura ("On Farming", 2nd century BC), Cato wrote that the best farms contained a vineyard, followed by an irrigated garden, willow plantation, olive orchard, meadow, grain land, forest trees, vineyard trained on trees, & lastly acorn woodlands. "The people living in the city of Rome constituted a huge market for the purchase of food produced on Italian farms.  Cato claimed that a small farm should have "a foreman, a foreman's wife, ten laborers, one ox driver, one donkey driver, one man in charge of the willow grove, one swineherd, in all sixteen persons; two oxen, two donkeys for wagon work, one donkey for the mill work." 

Land ownership was a dominant factor in distinguishing the aristocracy from the common person, & the more land a Roman owned, the more important he would be in the city. Soldiers were often rewarded with land from the commander they served. Though farms depended on slave labor, free men & citizens were hired at farms to oversee the slaves & ensure that the farms ran smoothly.  The Romans had four systems of farm management: direct work by owner & his family; tenant farming or sharecropping in which the owner & a tenant divide up a farm's produce; forced labor by slaves owned by aristocrats & supervised by slave managers; & other arrangements in which a farm was leased to a tenant.

There was much commerce between the provinces of the empire, & all regions of the empire were largely economically interdependent. Some provinces specialized in the production of grains including wheat, emmer, spelt, barley, & millet; others in wine & others in olive oil, depending on the soil type. Columella writes in his Res Rustica, "Soil that is heavy, chalky, & wet is not unsuited to the growing for winter wheat & spelt. Barley tolerates no place except one that is loose & dry."  Pliny the Elder wrote extensively about agriculture in his Naturalis Historia including chapter XVIII on The Natural History of Grain 

In the Roman Empire, some calculated that a family of 6 people would need to cultivate 12 iugera/ 3 hectares of land to meet minimum food requirements (without animals). Romans could acquire land for a farm in one of three ways. The most common way to gain land was to purchase the land. Though some lower class citizens did own small pieces of land, they often found it too difficult & expensive to maintain, & would sell it to someone in the aristocracy who had the financial backing to support a farm. Though there were some public lands available to the common person for use, aristocrats also tended to purchase those pieces of land, which caused a great deal of tension between the two classes. Some theorize that “Mass eviction of the poor by the rich underlay the political tensions & civil wars of the last century of the Roman Republic.” Another way to acquire land was as a reward for going to war. High ranking soldiers returning from war would often be given small pieces of public land or land in provinces as a way of paying them for their services. The last way to obtain land was through inheritance. A father could leave his land to his family, usually to his son, in the event of his death.


Cato explained that though some small farms were owned by lower class citizens & soldiers, much of the land was controlled by the noble class of Rome. Land ownership was just one of many distinctions that set the aristocracy apart from the lower classes. Aristocracy would "reorganize small holdings into larger more profitable farms in order to compete with other nobles." It was considered a point of pride to own not just the largest piece of land, but also to have land that grew high quality produce. As Cato wrote "when they would praise a worthy man their praise took this form: 'Good husband good farmer'; it is from the farming class that the bravest men & the sturdiest soldiers come." Careful planning went into every detail of owning & maintaining a farm in Roman culture.

June Women sell Garden Fruits & Vegetables while others Harvest Grain 1500s

Francesco Bassano the Younger (1563-1570) June Women selling Garden Fruits & Vegetables & Harvesting Grain

Women Marketing 1140

If the husband has sheep of his own, then his wife may have some of the wool, to make her husband & herself some clothes... she may also take wool to spin for the cloth makers. That way she can earn her own living, & still have plenty of time to do other work... It is the wife's occupation to winnow corn, to make malt, to wash clothes, to make hay & to cut corn. In time of need she should help her husband fill the dung-cart, drive the plough, & load the hay & corn. She should also go to the market to sell butter, cheese, milk, eggs, chickens, pigs, geese & corn. & also to buy the things needed for the household. haymaking.
          William FitzHerbert, Book of Husbandry (c. 1140)