The Yard and Garden The Yard and Garden Author Kate McPherson Editor Kate McPherson Copy Editor Leah Hamby Senior Encoder Leah Hamby Encoding and Metadata LEMDO Team Copyright Holder (Content) Kate McPherson Copyright Holder (XML and interface) University of Victoria Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

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Early Modern England Encyclopedia

By Kate McPherson, inspired by Michael Best’s Shakespeare’s Life and Times,Internet Shakespeare Editions

Encoded in TEI P5 according to the LEMDO Customization and Encoding Guidelines

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 Published page. Tidied bibliography. proofed Review of article finished. updated author respStmt. Added date, pubPlace, and publisher tags to sources Added Shakespeare’s Life and Times database to Best sources. fixed mistakes in formatting and works cited. Created File.
Women in the Yard

The yard of a early modern English home, especially one in the countryside, was an area of life where the housewife or other woman was likely in charge. Cottages, manors, mansions, and castles all likely had a vegetable garden, poultry house, dairy, buttery, stable, storehouse, distillery, pantry, and pigsty, most of which were overseen by women.

As John Fitzherbert’s 1525 Book of Husbandry recommends, Thou mustserve thy swine, both morning and evening, and give thy pullen fowl meat food in the morning, and when time of the year cometh, thou must take heed how thy hen, ducks and geese do lay, and to gather up their eggs Women also managed much of the household’s vegetable production through tilling, planting, weeding, and harvesting from a kitchen garden. The kitchen garden provided vegetables, flowers for ornament and preserving, plus herbs for enhancing the taste of food and which were also crucial to yield the many herbal remedies for treating ailments of all sorts.

Comfrey, thyme, rosemary, daisy, hyssop, lavender, marigold, poppy, tansy, and, of course, rose were frequently grown for their beauty, their fragrant leaves and flowers, as well as their potential as medicine. The herbs were sent both to the kitchen, where they were used generously in cookery, and to the housewife’s private room, her closet, where they were prepared for the family’s medicinal uses. There, these herbal products were made into syrups, distillations of essential oils, waters, and poultices.

Gardening books began to be published frequently in the Elizabethan period, including Thomas Hill’s 1568 The Profitable Art of Gardening, which he retitled and republished under a pseudonym as The Gardner’s Labyrinth in 1577. In addition to advice on the merits of human dung versus animal dung as fertilizer, he includes advice on growing exotic fruits such as melons, lemons, oranges, dates, and pomegranates through the use of rolling planters to maximize sun exposure and which could be rolled indoors during winter.

Flower gardens, especially those with decorative plants, were a sign of status for wealthier households and could enhance property value. For the gentry and emerging middle class, ornamental gardens became a way to display taste and refinement, influenced by Renaissance and design trends, especially those from Italy. The knot garden, an ornamental garden of elaborate geometric designs created by borders grown from the evergreen shurb box Buxus sempervirens were especially popular for wealthier homes starting in the 16th century.

Key Print Sources Hill, Thomas. The Gardener’s Labyrinth. 1577. Oxford UP, 1987. Orlin, Lena Cowen. Elizabethan Households: An Anthology. Folger Shakespeare Library, 1995. Picard, Liza. Elizabeth’s London: Everyday Life in Elizabethan London. St. Martin’s Press, 2003.
Key Online Sources Best, Michael. A <q>Knot</q> or Design for a Garden. Shakespeare’s Life and Times. Internet Shakespeare Editions, https://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/Library/SLT/society/huswifery/gardenknot.html. Accessed 19 Mar. 2023. Coleman, Julie. The Gardner’s Labyrinth. University of Glasgow Library, May 2001, https://www.gla.ac.uk/myglasgow/library/files/special/exhibns/month/may2001.html. French, Esther. The Elizabethan Garden: 11 Plants Shakespeare Would Have Known Well. The Folger Shakespeare Library, 31 May 2016, https://www.folger.edu/blogs/shakespeare-and-beyond/elizabethan-garden-plants-shakespeare/.