232 EVERYDAY LIFE
believed.1 Fruit trees of various kinds were widespread: apples,
pears and cherries being quite common. Plums, quinces and
medlars were also grown by many, and walnuts, chestnuts and
filberts were very popular. These were grown in what is some-
times called the hortus in surveys and terriers, and it has been
suggested that we ought to distinguish between this and the
gardinum, where a few flowers were grown and such vegetables
and herbs as were available.2 So far as the ordinary peasant was
concerned we need not bother about this minute sub-division
(which seems, in any case, to be of doubtful validity), but may
imagine him growing whatever he could in a fine confusion: a
few apple and pear trees, and vegetables, such as cabbages,
leeks, onions, garlic, mustard, peas and beans, together with pot
herbs—parsley and "herbys to make both sauce and stewe".
Piers Plowman, for instance, speaks of the harvest in his croft
that will give him beans and peas, leeks, parsley and shallots,
"chiboles and chervils and cherries, half-red".3
When we turn to view the interior of the peasant's house we
find that it had little to commend it. The floor was usually of
earth, trodden or beaten as hard as was possible, but liable to
become wet and messy with constant coming and going in wet
weather. Straw was freely used, both for warmth and cleanliness,
however.4 The fire was made on an iron plate or a hob of clay,
and about it clustered the cooking utensils—pots and pans of
earthenware (or perhaps brass or latten5), with ladles and forks
of metal of some kind; while bowls and basins of wood, and forks
and spoons, and many other odds and ends of use to the cook,
were carved and hollowed out by the master and his sons during
the long winter evenings from rough pieces of beech or oak. Add
1 Medieval gardening was fairly fully treated in 1862 by T. Wright in his
Hist. Domestic Manners and Sentiments, 293-303. The most authoritative
modern work on this subject, however, is by A. M. Amherst, Hist, of Garden-
ing. Sir F. Crisp's Medieval Gardens has admirable illustrations of rich men's
gardens, but does not help us to know much about those of the lower classes.
See e.g. Rent, and Cust. (M. de Ambresbury), Somerset Rec. Soc. v, passim;
Ramsey Cart. s.v. gardens.
* The Athen&tm, Aug. 7, 1909, p. 146.
3 Piers Plowman> B. 11. 288-96. Chiboles—small onions; chervils=pot-
herbs, O.F. cerfeuil.
4 Selden Soc. vn, 52, 91; and cf. Myrk, Festial (E.E.T.S.), p. 39, 1. 22.
6 Latten was a mixed metal of yellow colour, either identical with, or
closely resembling brass.