The Plan of St. Gall :: :: University of Virginia Library

V.10.3

MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN

The medicinal herb garden (herbularius) lies in the northeastern
corner of the monastery site, immediately east of
the House of the Physicians. It is a small intimate garden,
37½ × 27½ feet (fig. 414). Like the Monks' Vegetable Garden,
it is surrounded by a wall or a fence, but the arrangement
of the planting beds differs. In the Vegetable Garden
the planting beds are separated from the walls by a peripheral
walk, so that each bed can be cultivated from all four
sides. In the medicinal herb garden a row of planting beds
clings to each wall. This seemingly insignificant rearrangement
of beds in relation to the wall is, according to Wolfgang
Sörrensen, the first step away from the "utility garden"
(Nutzgarten) to the "pleasure garden" (Ziergarten).[389] It
would, nevertheless, be wrong to classify the herb garden
on the Plan of St. Gall as a "Ziergarten." The primary
function of its plants is a practical one: they furnish the
physician with the pharmaceutical products needed for his
cures. As in the Monks' Vegetable Garden, each planting
bed is reserved for the cultivation of a single species. There
are sixteen in all:

1.	lilium	lily (lilium candidum L.)
2.	rosas	garden rose (rosa gallica L.)
3.	fasiolo	climbing bean (dolichos melanophtalmus L.)
4.	sata regia	pepperwort (satareia hortensis L.)
5.	costo	costmary (tanacetum blasamita L.)
6.	fena greca	greek hay (trigonella foenum graecum L.)
7.	rosmarino	rosemary (rosmarinus officinalis L.)
8.	menta	mint (mentha piperita L.)
9.	saluia	sage (salvia officinalis L.)
10.	ruta	rue (ruta graveolens L.)
11.	gladiola	iris (iris germanica L.)
12.	pulegium	pennyroyal (mentha pulegium L.)
13.	sisimbria	water cress (mentha aquatica L.)
14.	cumino	cumin (cuminum cyminum L.)
15.	lubestico	lovage (levisticum officinale L.)
16.	feniculum	fennel (anethum foeniculum L.)[390]

A charming contemporary description of a garden of this
type is Walahfrid Strabo's Hortulus, written around 845 in

182

[ILLUSTRATION]

PLAN OF ST. GALL. MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN

414. PLAN OF ST. GALL. MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN

414.X

414.Y

PLOT PLAN

SHOWING RELATIONSHIP OF HEALTH & MEDICAL FACILITIES

The plot plan suggests two traffic patterns within the Infirmary areas. Moving
north, monks and serfs needing medical attention could leave the Church after
services and report to whichever medical facility they were assigned. The
Monks' Infirmary was available only to regular monks; the House for
Bloodletting was probably used by both monks and serfs. The critically ill were
lodged with the physicians; probably serfs or other laymen with minor infirmities
were treated where they lodged.

Moving southward on the site, the physicians might make daily rounds:
conducting or overseeing bloodletting; at the bath and kitchen for the ill
recommending therapy and special diet, supplies for which might be sent for
from the small stock of luxuries afforded the Abbot in his own nearby kitchen;
thence reporting directly to the Abbot himself (as was their charge and his own)
concerning the ill, recommending further treatment for some, or swifter cures for
suspected malingerers. At mid-point in this course the physicians could stop in
the Chapel and Cloister for the Ill to advise recuperating brothers.

It would be an oversight to regard these economies of movement and communication
as happy accidents; on the contrary, a high degree of skill and
consciousness in such matters helped the Benedictines eventually to influence
the affairs of Carolingian Europe, and gave the Plan of St. Gall its unique
stature as an architectural plan.

The herbs to be cultivated in this small garden are selected for their medicinal properties. Their renascence each spring under the care of man,
after the plants had either died altogether or only back to their roots during winter, has been described by Walahfrid Strabo in an account of
great poetic beauty (Hortulus) as a recurring manifestation of the forces of life imparted to nature by Divine creation.

The physicians cared directly for the critically ill and for those to be bled; their chief duties in addition were making medicines, and prescribing
courses of treatment that might be administered by others. From the nearby garden they could pluck fresh the plants needed to compound the
poultices, purges, infusions, and simples that were the main concerns of pharmacy in the 9th century.

183

[ILLUSTRATION]

415. MEDICINAL HERB GARDEN. PERSPECTIVE VIEW FROM THE NORTHEAST (INTERPRETATION)

Inde noti conquitur flabris solisque calore
Areola et lignis, ne diffluat, obsita quadris
Altius a plano modicum resupina levatur.
Tota minutatim rastris contunditur uncis,
Et pinguis fermenta fimi super insinuantur.
Seminibus quaedam tentamus holuscula, quaedam
Stirpibus antiquis priscae revocare iuventae.
Denique vernali interdum conspergitur imbre
Parva seges, tenuesque fovet praeblanda vicissim
Luna comas. . . .
Then my small patch was warmed by winds from the south
And the sun's heat. That it should not be washed away,
We faced it with planks and raised it in oblong beds
A little above the level ground. With a rake
I broke the soil up bit by bit, and then
Worked in from on top the leaven of rich manure.
Some plants we grow from seed, some from old stocks
We try to bring back to the youth they knew before.
Then come the showers of Spring, from time to time
Watering our tiny crop, and in its turn
The gentle moon caresses the delicate leaves.

WALAHFRID STRABO, HORTLUS, verse 46-55

Payne and Blunt, eds., 1966, 28-29

the monastery of Reichenau.[391] The poet relates how in the
early spring he rushes into this garden, weeds out the nettles,
and covers the soil with manure which he carries out in
baskets. As soon as the soil is permeated with the fermenting
action of this substance and fanned by the warm winds
from the south, he turns it over with the spade, and
frames the planting beds with boards to prevent the humus
from sliding off onto the walks. Then he sets out his seedlings
and in the following weeks observes with empathy
the miracle of nature's rejuvenation in the growth of plants
whose shape and physical characteristics he describes with
a sharpness of visual definition that reminds one of the
much later plant and water studies of Albrecht Dürer.

Nine of the sixteen plants listed in the herb garden on
the Plan were also grown in Walahfrid Strabo's garden. All
of these plants, as botanists stress, could be raised in the
warm climate of the island monastery of Reichenau,[392] and
all of them, with the exception of pumpkin and melon, had
medicinal value. In the cultivation of these gardens and the
medical uses to which they were put, the monks leaned
heavily on the classical tradition. But they did not expand
just the traditional medical use of plants and herbs; the
benefits they brought to the art of cooking may have surpassed
the contributions their gardens made to medicine.[393]
From the monasteries the use of herbs spread to the nobles
and the peasants, and thus, eventually, herbs became an
integral part of every kitchen garden.[394]

Fish which are fatty by nature, like salmon, eels, shad (alase), sardines, or
herring, are caught, and this mixture is made from them and from dried
fragrant herbs and salt: a very solid and well-pitched vat is prepared, holding
three or four modii, and dry fragrant herbs are taken both from the garden and
the field, for instance, anise, coriander, fennel, parsley, pepperwort, endive,
rue, mint, watercress, privet, pennyroyal, thyme, marjoram, betony, agrimony.
And the first row is strewn from these in the bottom of the vat. Then the
second row is made of the fish: whole if they are small, and cut to bits if large.
Above this a third row of salt two fingers high is added, and the vat should
be filled to the top in this manner, with the three rows of herbs, fish, and salt
alternating each over the other. Then it should be covered with a lid and left so
for seven days. And when this period is past, for twelve days straight the mixture
should be stirred every day clear to the bottom with a wooden paddle
shaped like an oar. After this the liquid that has flowed out of the mixture is
collected, and in this way a liquid or sauce [?; omogarum] is made from it. Two
sesters of this liquid are taken and mixed with two half sesters of good wine.
Then four bunches [manipuli] a piece of dry herbs are thrown into this mixture,
to wit, anise and coriander and pepperwort; also a fistful of fenugreek seed is
added, and thirty or forty grains of pepper spices, three pennyweights (?) of
costmary, likewise of cinnamon, likewise of cloves. These should be pulverized
and mixed with the same liquid; then this mixture is to be cooked in an iron
or bronze pot until it boils down to the measure of one sester. But before it is
cooked down, a half pound [libram semissem] of skimmed honey should be
added to the same. And when it is fully cooked in the manner of a drink [more
potionum] it should be strained through a bag until it is clear. And it should
be poured hot into a bag, strained and cooled and kept in a well-pitched bowl
for seasoning viands.

Recipe quotation after Mitteilungen der antiquarischen Gesellschaft,
Zürich, XII, No 6; Bikel, 1914, 99-100.

184

[ILLUSTRATION]

416. PLAN OF ST. GALL. HOUSE FOR BLOODLETTING

In the Middle Ages bleeding was used to remedy almost every known disease, to such excess that public opinion eventually turned against the
procedure. It is, even today, used as a cure for a small number of pathological conditions where other means fail—but nowhere, now, to the
extent of justifying the construction of special houses for bleeding. The Plan of St. Gall reveals with unique precision the appearance of this
extinct species of house in the 9th century.

[389]

"Die vier Wände stehen nicht kahl ringsum, sie werden vielmehr
von dem schönen Wachstum der Beete gekränzt, sodass der Wandelnde,
wo er auch sein mag, von Beeten umgeben, gleichsam eingehüllt ist."
On this aspect of monastic gardening and planting, see Sörrensen, in
Studien, 1962, 241-43 and 263ff.

[390]

The modern Latin plant names listed in parentheses are taken from
Wolfgang Sörrensen's article on the plants of the Plan. See Studien,
1962, 223ff.

[391]

Walahfrid Strabo, Hortulus, ed. Dümmler, in Mon. Germ. Hist.,
Poetae Latini Aevi Carolini, II, 1884, 335ff; and ed. Näf and Gabathuler,
1957.

[392]

Sierp, 1925, 770.

[393]

For the history and medicinal functions of these plants, I refer to the
detailed accounts of Sierp (1925, passim) Fischer (1929, passim), Sieg
(1953, passim), and Sörrensen in Studien, 1962, passim.

[394]

The pains that were taken in the preparation of certain potions
made from these herbs border on the unbelievable. In illustration of this
is a recipe for a seasoning substance, described in a manuscript of St.
Gall, which I cannot resist bringing to the attention of the reader, since
it is published in a journal not available to many: