Medieval Herb Gardens In ancient medieval times, the Romans created landscape gardens, as well as formal gardens. While the tradition of landscape gardens did not survive the fall of Rome or the breakdown of the Western Empire, the tradition of formal gardens did survive in medieval monasteries, which were abbeys ruled by abbesses or abbotts.

However, while the Romans' formal gardens focused on agriculture, the herb gardens in the monasteries concentrated on practical gardening. Still, the formal structure stayed the same.

Historians have not determined exactly what the early monastic gardens looked like. The earliest information about the appearance of monastic gardens comes from the plan of the monastery of Saint Gall, which was written in Switzerland in the 9th Century.

Saint Gall's plan revealed that these medieval herb gardens consisted of rectangular...

This style of garden was dominant in Western Europe up until the English landscape gardens became the norm in the 18th century.
Saint Gall's plan included orchards surrounded by a formal garden of geometric beds. While historians are unsure that this style of garden survived from Ancient Rome, many believe that it did, as this style of garden originates in Ancient Egypt.

The early monastic gardens catered mostly to the needs of the monasteries, and were filled with fishponds, grape arbors, herbs for food and medicine, and flowers for religious purposes. These gardening skills appear to have survived the breakdown of the Roman Empire and the secular medieval gardens were based on these gardening skills.

In later years, medieval herb gardens could be divided into two groups: the hortus conclusus and the hortus deliciarum.…