The Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City complements its collection of art and architecture of the Middle Ages with period plants in three cloistered gardens.
The Cloisters branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City complements its collection of art and architecture of the Middle Ages with period plants in three cloistered gardens.
History of Lavender
The folklore begins in ancient times, when Roman soldiers used the plant that grew wild on the rocky shores of the Mediterranean to perfume their bath water. English lavender soaps and bath products are a favorite tourist purchase, but lavender likely was one of the many imports of the Roman soldiers who invaded England in the second century B.C.
The Greek physician Pedanius Dioscordes, writing in the years 40 to 70 A.D., produced a volume De Materia Medica, which was widely quoted up through the seventeenth century for its botanical wisdom. Of lavender, he says, “the decoction of lavender is like Hyssop, good for griefs in the thorax. It is also mingled profitably with the Antidotes.”
Before Linnaeus, who systematized botanical names, plants growing in different parts of the world, and indeed in different centuries, were often confused. Plants were named differently in different languages, and the inconsistency made for errors. For example, some think that lavender is the spikenard referred to in the Bible, and others believe spikenard to be a completely different species.
Before the advent of pharmaceutical companies, which developed and standardized medicines, there were healers who used natural plants to effect cures. In the Middle Ages in Europe, growing herbs was a function of the monasteries. The cloisters of such societies were divided into the kitchen garden, in which grew fruits, vegetables, and cooking herbs, and the infirmarian’s garden, in which grew the healing herbs. Certain monks or nuns were assigned to plant and tend a physick garden. They also gathered leaves, berries, flowers, and roots from the fields and woods and dried and stored them for later use. Later this task fell to the lady of the manor, who would grow and store herbs and dose her household and the poor surrounding her. These skills were part of her girlhood education. From these herbs she made “simples” to keep in her still room, remedies coming from plants thought to have particular virtues. Turner, in his sixteenth-century Herball, recommends that “the flowers of Lavender quilted in a cappe and dayly worne are good for all diseases of the head that come of a cold cause and they comfort the braine very well” (translated into English by John Goodyear in 1655 and quoted by Joseph Krutch in Herbal).
Laundresses in medieval England were referred to as “lavenders” because of both the old Roman custom of washing clothes in lavender water and the Latin term lavare, meaning “to wash.” The poorest women who were lavenders had the reputation of being prostitutes, and dire warnings were written about association with them. An anonymous poet in the early 1500s wrote, “Thou shalt be my lavender (laundress)/to wash and keep clean all my gear/Our two beds shall be set/without any let.”
A scene from the Buda Hills in Budapest, Hungary, where the horse guards protect the castle and lavender adds to the color.
In the Cloisters herb garden, lavender is paired with Our Lady’s bedstraw (Galium vernum) and more than 250 other species cultivated during the Middle Ages.
Canterbury Shaker Village in New Hampshire features historic buildings, authentic crafts, flower and herb gardens, and a working farm.
The German nun Hildegard of Bingen (1098–1179) was educated in a convent and entered the Benedictine order, where she later became abbess. Although she was called a saint, she was never formally canonized. Known for her musical compositions, treatment of the sick, healing powers, and miraculous cures, she advocated the use of lavender water, a decoction of vodka, gin, or brandy mixed with lavender, for migraines.
Lavender was thought to be remarkably effective against apoplexy, palsy, and loss of speech. “It profiteth them much that have the palsey if they be washed with the distilled water from the lavender flowers or are anointed with the oil made from the flowers and olive oil in such manner as oil of roses is used,” said the barber-surgeon John Gerard in his 1597 Herbal. To cure headaches, Lavandula stoechas was mixed with other herbs and worn in a little bag around the neck—a red silk bag for noblemen and a muslin bag for commoners. Salmon reported in his 1710 Herbal “it is good against the bitings of serpents, mad-dogs and other venomous creatures.”
The effectiveness of lavender and other herbs as remedies for various ailments remains in dispute to this day, and there is no telling how often cures have resulted from a placebo effect—the belief that the herb is healing—rather than the herb itself.
Lavender also has a place in the superstitions of some cultures. In 1912, Lady Northcote wrote in her Book of Herb Lore that in Spain and Portugal, lavender was used as a strewing herb on the floors of churches and was tossed into bonfires to avert evil spirits on St. John’s Day. In Tuscany, an old custom was to pin sprigs of lavender on children’s shirts to avert the evil eye. Although my friend from Milano scoffed at this superstition as a peasant custom, she admitted that she would never wear a lavender- or violet-colored dress to the opening of the opera or theater, because people in the cast might think she was trying to jinx the performance. She laughs when I try to delve further into the origins of this notion and says that “it just isn’t done,” in the way that in the United States not so long ago, one would never wear black to a wedding because the bride and her family might object to the symbolism of mourning.
