Carrying out plants in pots & creating geometric garden beds inside a fence...

1644 David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690) Spring

15C Forests, Chases, & Gameparks for Hunting by the Elites

Hunting deer, 15C Illuminated Manuscript

In the Middle Ages, hunting was an activity for elites. Hunting was the privilege of the nobility, closely linked to land ownership.  When agriculture emerged in the Neolithic era, active livestock farming relegated hunting to a secondary role. Hunting became primarily a defensive practice aimed at protecting farmers’ crops from hungry or destructive wild animals. While crops & livestock farming covered people’s basic dietary needs, hunting offered a wider choice of meat to the privileged classes. Noblemen performed necessary management of their lands & the peasants in their employ. They raised funding for military expeditions & social events, practiced horseback riding, hunting, & hawking. Hunting had a dual symbolic & social significance. Being invited to hunt with the King was one of the court’s great honors. In Europe, laws were devised to regulate hunting on royal territory. The elites could show off  their abilities as warriors through hunting. More than a pastime, it was an important arena for social interaction, essential training for war, & a gauge  of nobility.  Local lords maintained & monopolized the gameparks & the taking of big game in forest reserves & small game in warrens. These large sanctuaries of woodland—essentially the royal forest—where populations of game animals were kept & watched over by gamekeepers. Here the peasantry could not hunt, poaching being subject to severe punishment. The lower classes mostly had to content themselves with snaring birds & smaller game outside of forest reserves & warrens.  By the 16C, most areas of land reserved for hunting of game were of 3 kinds, according to their degree of enclosure & being subject to Forest Laws: Forests, large unenclosed areas of wilderness; Chases, which normally belonged to nobles rather than the crown; & Parks, which were enclosed & not subject to Forest Laws.

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Piero de' Crescenzi (1233-1321) wrote of Hunting in Book 10 of his Liber ruralium commodorum 1304-09. He advised that the gamepark should be stocked with hare, roe deer, red deer, wild boar, rabbits.  He recommended the English, French, & Spanish hare specifically.  He wrote of hunting dogs & their dietary recommendations for each season & even times of the day to feed them.  Those participating in "the hunt" lived with unique vocabularies, customs, & ancient rituals.

Piero de' Crescenzi (1233-1321) Liber ruralium commodorum 1304-09. Illuminator - Master of Fitzwilliam MS. 268 - 1470-1485 - French. Le livre des prouffis champestres et ruraux, Book 10 On hunting (folio 265r)

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

May - Falconry - Using a bird to help hunting other birds. Agricultural calendar from a manuscript of Piero de' Crescenzi (1233-1321) written c. 1306. Illumination from The Boccaccio Master Geneva (active between 1448-75) Illustration 1470-75

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Bear Hunting

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Boar Hunting

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Hare Hunting

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Hunting

The Book of the Hunt of King Modus & Queen Ratio after 1455

Egerton Book of Hours Wolfgang Beurer (15C) Hunting

See
Joyce Salisbury, The Beast Within. Animals in the Middle Ages (New York, 1994).

Chasse L.-J. Bord and J.-P. Mugg, La chasse au Moyen Age. Occident latin, Ve–XVe siècle (Paris, 2008).

Robert Delort, Le commerce des fourrures en Occident à la fin du Moyen Age ,2 vols. (Rome, 1978).

HH J. Cummins, The Hound and the Hawk. The Art of Medieval Hunting (London, 2001).

Hunting A. Smets and B. V an den Abeele, “Medieval Hunting” in  Animals in the Medieval Age (Oxford, 2011).

Hannele Klemettilä, Animals and Hunters in the Late Middle Ages (Routledge, 2015)

Edward of Norwich, The Master of Game , ed. W. Baillie-Grohman and F. Baillie-Grohman (Philadelphia, 2005).

MH R. Almond, Medieval Hunting (Phoenix Mill, 2003).

Poétique A. Strubel and C. de Saulnier, La poétique de la chasse au Moyen Age: Les livres de chasse du XIVe siècle (Paris, 1994).

Garden outside the window by Wenceslaus Hollar 1607-1677

Wenceslaus Hollar (Czech artist, 1607-1677)  Spring

Wenceslaus Hollar was born in 1607, the son of an upper middle-class civic official. He left his native Prague at age 20, and likely studied in Frankfurt under Matthaus Merian. His 1st book of etchings was published in 1635, in Cologne, when Hollar was 28. The following year he came to the attention of the art collector the Earl of Arundel who was making an official visit to the continent, & Hollar subsequently became a part of his household, settling in England early in 1637. He remained in England during the beginning of the English Civil War period; but left London for Antwerp in 1642, where he continued to work on a variety of projects. In 1652, he returned to England, working on a number of large projects for the publisher John Ogilby & Sir William Dugdale. Hollar was in London during the Great Fire of 1666, & remains most famous for his scenes of the city before & after the fire. He a skilled etcher, which is remarkable given that he was almost blind in one eye. Hollar died in London on 25 March 1677. By his life's end, he had produced nearly 3000 separate etchings.

1614 Spring Garden

1614 Spring Garden - April - The Months - print Hendrik Hondius

Preparing the Garden 17C

1644 David Teniers the Younger (1610–1690) Spring. Love the Gardeners in the background moving pots outdoors and raking the garden.

1609 Garden

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

1658 Walled Garden with dog (or small lion)

1658 Abraham Hertochs (Dutch printmaker, 1626-1672) Wall-enclosed Garden with Raised Geometric Beds. Gentleman & his Lady oversee the springtime work of readying the garden for summer. Gardeners at the back wall seem to be preparing the wall to support vines or wall fruit.  Dog (or small lion} runs alongside the masters.

1687 Garden

1687 Spring Garden - April Minnend paar, Anonymous, Crispijn van de Passe (I), Maerten de Vos, 1574-1687

16C Garden in the Background of a Scantily dressed Allegory

Crispin de Passe (1565-1637), Allegory of The Five Senses - Smell.  Here a Woman in a garden explores the smells around her, including flowers & her 2 dogs.  Geometric garden beds can be seen just below her perch on the hill.

Allegorical stories & art are often set in garden suroundings, frequently in or near walled gardens like the print above. The locus amoenus was one of the traditional locations of epic & chivalric literature. Locus amoenus (Latin for "pleasant place") is a literary term which generally referring to an idealized place of safety or comfort, sometimes beautiful, shady parklands or open woods, or at other times, to a group of idyllic garden areas, sometimes with connotations of Eden. A locus amoenus usually has 3 basic elements: trees, grass, & water. 

Dutch garden was the description given to a particular type of rectangular garden space, often enclosed within hedges or walls, even if part of a larger garden or parkland. The garden in this print is enclosed with hedges. The space surrounded by these hedges appears to be laid out in a highly cultivated & geometrical & perhaps symmetrical, fashion, shaped by dense plantings of flowers, & edged with dense & clipped shrubs, sometimes in geometrical patterns. 

The garden in the back of this print has trellised wooden arbors. Trellis arbors ensured privacy & provided shade while attracting birds to fill the air with bird-songs.  Grapes, roses & rosemary in particular were grown over trellises; gilliflowers (carnations, pinks) were trellised in their pots to keep them from falling over. Other types of local flowering vines were also grown that way. Lattices with climbing plants & trellises with climbing plants were used as garden walls, often starting from the back of a turfed bed or seat, & also for arches & pergolas.

1614 Garden

Crispijn van de Passe the Elder (Dutch engraver, c 1564-1637) Spring Garden, from Hortus Floridus, published 1614-15

1616 Garden

1616 Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625) Spring.  The garden wall & pots signal a proper garden.

16C Music & Courting in a Garden

Spring - Four Seasons; Art after  Hendrick Goltzius; print by Saenredam  1595

16C Flemish workers preparing Gardens

 Jacob Grimmer (Flemish artist, 1525-1590) Spring Garden

Allegory - 16C Flemish workers preparing Spring Gardens

(after) Pieter Bruegel the Younger (Flemish artist, 1564/1565-1636) An Allegory of Spring

1620s Garden from Jan Breughel II 1601-1678

1620s Jan Breughel II (1601-1678)  Allegory of Spring dry in a garden with geometric beds & copious pots of plants.