Medieval Landscape and the Encyclopedic Tradition (article)

Medieval Landscape and the Encyclopedic Tradition
By Walter Cahn, for Yale French Studies (1991)

This article is most irrelevant (though well-written). So I'm just going to include some quotes I found interesting.

"Scholars who from the nineteenth century onward sought to chart the history of a concern with landscape in art and literature were struck first and foremost by the silence of the Middle Ages on this score, by absence, in other words, or at any rate, by the apparent lack of a concrete expression in the medieval period of anything resembling a conception of the natural world in our sense of the term" (11).

I see.

"...when medieval artists turned to nature, their vision was transfixed by 'the icy winds of doctrine,' and flowers and trees lost their lively quality to become prototypes of the divine" (12).

I realize Cahn is speaking of art and not literature, but I think this bears in interesting ways on Mandeville's treatment of nature. Sometimes, he is concerned largely (or at least clearly) with the imprint of the divine, and only rarely does he mention nature for its own sake, but where he shines is in a middle ground in which nature is important for the way it reflects culture.

"...much encyclopedic writing about the natural world is mere enumeration and description, leavened by etymological word play, and conceived as an inventory of the Lord's creation, a more or less systematic supplement to the record of the divine work given in the opening verses of Genesis" (14).

See above. Then, Cahn goes on to discuss Marvels of the East, and the illustrations within (focusing on an illustration of a balm tree). He draws attention to the way the illustration evokes the innate qualities of the plant, and the importance of space in the composition.

Later in the article:

"...the rendering of nature in the ancient world and in the Middle Ages is often made by way of personifications, not only of winds, but of other entities like rivers, the earth and natura herself(17).

Which just leads me to think generally about figurative nature and the use of plants as anything (and everything) other than specific objects/scientific specimens in the Travels.

Medicines and Spices (article)

Medicines and Spices, with Special Reference to Medieval Monastic Accounts
By Marjorie Jenkins, for Garden History (1976)

This article is very short but has a couple of interesting points. It is essentially a note on the importance and prevalence of spices in medieval monastic records. Marjorie Jenkins (based on notes from Nancy Jenkins) lists some common medieval spices in Europe, with reference to the Rule of St. Benedict. Then, she notes some evidence for the cultural importance of spices.

Interestingly, she points out the taxes that were levied on spices in the 1300s in order to raise funds for things like repairing London Bridge. That spices, along with known commodities of import, were subject to taxes points to their popularity and their increasingly consistent place in the medieval kitchen and apothecary.

Jenkins also points to the use of spices as a currency for things like the payment of rent: with standardized prices (which, per pound, could be easily converted to "sheep" or money) making them an acceptable form of payment. Lastly, she points to the place of spices in gifts and tribute to royalty and persons of import.

Brief though this article may be, it points to the use of monastic records as an indication of trafficking in spices in Europe - purchases by the Cellarer and Infirmarer reflect the popularity and trade of different spices/botanic commodities in the kitchen and infirmary.

What these accounts do not satisfactorily reflect is the cultivation and use of indigenous herbs in monastic gardens: says Jenkins, medicinal plants which are indigenous or easily cultivated in our climate are not mentioned in these accounts (48), and I suppose one (I) must look elsewhere for information on the popularity and use of indigenous plants.

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (article)

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary (Alice F. Tryon, American Fern Journal, Vol. 47 / No. 1, 1957).

Tryon's article begins by tracing the image of the vegetable lamb through some of its most notable appearances in literature. She begins with Rabbi Jochanan in 436, moves through its medieval manifestations in a 1235 work by a "commentator" on the Scriptures - John Mandeville ("something of an English Ulysses") - Friar Odoric - and then, Claude Duret, in his Histoire Admirable des Plantes. She then briefly mentions its reception in 16th and 17th century academic circles, citing Kircher of Avignon and Girolamo Cardana of Pavia as her examples. Tryon documents Dutch East India Company surgeon Dr. Kaempfer's attempts to find the creature, and then Sir Hans Sloane's success (he "laid the object before the scientific world" as he presented a specimen to the Royal Society of London).

The remainder of the article, appropriately enough for the American Fern Journal, decidedly states that the specimen provided by Sloane was actually "a portion of a fern plant that grows in southern China" (Cibotium barometz). Essentially, the ferns, which are actually a type of fern tree reaching 15 feet in height, bear clusters of fronds with trunks that are covered in long "hairs". A portion of the trunk is cut and the fronds cut to resemble appendages; the addition of seeds to represent eyes produces a piece of animalistic folk-art that much resembles a lamb (or other small animal). As I mentioned in my brief summary of the equally brief Tree-Wool article, this is one of two prevalent explanations for the origin of the vegetable lamb myth, the other being a simple conflation of "trees" and "lambs" in a misunderstanding of then-exotic cotton.

Tryon also includes the pretty bit of verse by Erasmus Darwin which I've mentioned in other entries, and I'll include it here because it's quite nice:

Cradled in snow, and fanned by Arctic air,
Shines, gentle Barometz, thy golden hair;
Rooted in earth, each cloven hoof descends,
And round and round her flexile neck she bends,
Crops the gray coral moss and hoary thyme,
Or laps with rosy tongue the melting rime;
Eyes with mute tenderness her distant dam,
And seems to bleat - a 'vegetable lamb'.

(Erasmus Darwin, The Botanic Garden)