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 Early Modern England Encyclopedia EMEE

Anthology Leads: Kate McPherson and Kate Moncrief.

 Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada Mitacs Globalink Research Internship Utah Valley University

Released with Early Modern England Encyclopedia 1.0a

 University of Victoria on the Linked Early Modern Drama Online Platform

Unless otherwise noted, intellectual copyright in EMEE Anthology pages is held by Kate McPherson on behalf of the contributors. Copyright on the TEI-XML markup is held by the University of Victoria on behalf of the LEMDO Team. The content and TEI-XML markup in this file are licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. This file is freely downloadable without permission under the following conditions: (1) credit must be given to the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO in any subsequent use of the files and /or data; (2) this availability statement must remain in the file; (3) the content cannot be adapted or repurposed (except for quotations for the purposes of academic review and citation); and (4) commercial uses are not permitted without the knowledge and consent of the authors, EMEE, and LEMDO. Neither the content nor the code in this file is licensed for training large language models (LLMs), ingestion into an LLM, or any use in any artificial intelligence applications; such uses are considered to be commercial uses and are strictly prohibited.

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

This document uses Canadian English spelling

 Document Types All documents in LEMDO are either born-digital documents or primary documents. Within those two general categories, LEMDO offers additional ways to categorize a file. Born-digital Born-digital documents are anything other than primary texts Critical Critical material, such as a general introduction or a textual introduction. Responsibilities Responsibilities Author A person, family, or organization responsible for creating a work that is primarily textual in content, regardless of media type (e.g., printed text, spoken word, electronic text, tactile text) or genre (e.g., poems, novels, screenplays, blogs). Use also for persons, etc., creating a new work by paraphrasing, rewriting, or adapting works by another creator such that the modification has substantially changed the nature and content of the original or changed the medium of expression. LEMDO uses the term author in two contexts: (1) to indicate the author of a primary work or document (such as Hamlet), and (2) to indicate the author of a secondary text (such as the Critical Introduction to <title level="m">Hamlet, by David Bevington). Editor A person, family, or organization contributing to a resource by revising or elucidating the content, e.g., adding an introduction, notes, or other critical matter. An editor may also prepare a resource for production, publication, or distribution. For major revisions, adaptations, etc., that substantially change the nature and content of the original work, resulting in a new work, see author. LEMDO uses the general term editor only in edition metadata and only to indicate when a person is responsible for editing all parts of an edition. Otherwise, use the more granular terms to describe the precise nature of the editorial role. Copy Editor LEMDO uses the term owner for the person who checks facts, quotations, and citations; may make formatting changes; may convert from one citation style to another; may suggest wording changes; and enforces conformity with the project style guide. Markup Editor A person or organization performing the coding of SGML, HTML, or XML markup of metadata, text, etc. Gloss needed. Copyright Holder A person or organization to whom copy and legal rights have been granted or transferred for the intellectual content of a work. The copyright holder, although not necessarily the creator of the work, usually has the exclusive right to benefit financially from the sale and use of the work to which the associated copyright protection applies. Normally the editor is the copyright holder for an LEMDO edition. EMEE Keywords Culture Learn about the customs, beliefs, and daily lives of people in early modern England. Daily Life Household Management Housewifery Home Remedies Gender Women Science Herbal Remedies 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. Mahayla Galliford Mahayla Galliford

Project manager, 2025-present; research assistant, 2021-present. Mahayla Galliford (she/her) graduated with a BA (Hons with distinction) from the University of Victoria in 2024. Mahayla’s undergraduate research explored early modern stage directions and civic water pageantry. Mahayla continues her studies through UVic’s English MA program and her SSHRC-funded thesis project focuses on editing and encoding girls’ manuscripts, specifically Lady Rachel Fane’s dramatic entertainments, in collaboration with LEMDO.

 Leah Hamby Leah Hamby

Leah Hamby is the primary encoder for the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Aside from encoding, she also works as an editor for the project and contributed several articles of her own. She has been working on the EMEE since February 2023. As of February 2026, she is soon to graduate with honours from Utah Valley University with a major in history and a minor in creative writing. Her other work with the LEMDO program includes remediating William Kemp’s Kemp’s Nine Day’s Wonder for the Digital Renaissance Editions.

 Kate McPherson Kate McPherson

Kate McPherson is Professor of English and Honors Program Director at Utah Valley University (Orem, UT, USA). In 2015, she began working to redevelop Shakespeare’s Life and Times, created by Michael Best, into the Early Modern England Encyclopedia. Her other publications include commentary on Pericles and The Comedy of Errors for the New Oxford Shakespeare (2016); the co-edited volumes Stages of Engagement: Drama and Religion in Post-Reformation England with James Mardock (Duquesne University Press, 2014) and Shakespeare Expressed: Page, Stage, and Classroom in Shakespeare and His Contemporaries, with Kathryn M. Moncrief and Sarah Enloe (Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2013). With Kathryn M. Moncrief, Kate has also two edited collections, Performing Pedagogy in Early Modern England: Gender, Instruction, and Performance (Ashgate, 2011) and Performing Maternity in Early Modern England (Ashgate 2008). She has also published numerous articles on early modern maternity in scholarly journals. Kate participated in the 2008 National Endowment for the Humanities Institute, Shakespeare’s Blackfriars: The Study, the Stage, the Classroom, at the American Shakespeare Center. She also served as Play Seminar Director, a public humanities position, for the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2017 and 2018.

 LEMDO Team The LEMDO Team is based at the University of Victoria and normally comprises the project director, the lead developer, project manager, junior developers(s), remediators, encoders, and remediating editors. University of Victoria https://www.uvic.ca/
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/.