The Hortus Conclusus

A medieval garden style for the elite or a source of religious symbolism?

What springs to mind when you think about medieval gardens? Probably monks, monasteries and herbs first but then if you recall paintings you might have seen on Christmas or greetings cards you might remember seeing people – particularly the

Garden History, Landscape Design, Religion

Castle, Monastic

Medieval

Britain, Europe, Worldwide

5th – 16th Century

An Enclosed Garden

That walled or hedged garden is often referred to as a Hortus Conclusus which is simply Latin for an enclosed garden. It was not a productive garden, instead it was an ornamental and idealised space.

Of course the medieval world was very different to ours. Much of Europe was forested or uncultivated, and such wilderness was seen as frightening. Settlements were small and scattered, often centred around defensive sites such as castles or fortified manors, with windows mainly looking inward to courtyards, rather than outwards over the countryside. Villages and estates had to be, by and large, self-sufficient so gardening was largely about food production or basic medicines. Because fields and gardens were liable to incursions from wild animals, outlaws or any attacking forces, they tended to be close to habitation and surrounded with hedges and ditches for protection.

The Little Garden of Paradise. By Upper Rhenish Master - Google Arts & Culture — pQEwgEtFSO-tiw, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=29098963

Madonna on a Crescent Moon in Hortus Conclusus, painter unknown, 15th Century. Credit: Burkhard Mücke, CC BY-SA 4.0 , via Wikimedia Commons

Antependium of the Mystical Hunt, Middle Rhine, appliqué embroidery, 2. quarter of 16th century, Kolumba, Cologne. By Armin Kleiner, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=148859869