Religious Gardens

The early Christians did not have the opportunity for much, if any gardening, as they were a persecuted landless minority facing martyrdom for their faith. A few rich Christians may have had gardens, but they were few in number. Early hermits and cenobites, the name applied to early monks and nuns, also known as the desert fathers and mothers, kept gardens purely for food, but they were for feeding only. After the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West gardening was still practised by monks, but it was not a sophisticated practice. The benedictine monks and the monks of the Celtic  Church practised tilling the earth. But many of the Celtic monks were living in small communities. That probably did not distinguish between gardening and farming. Celtic monks almost certainly constructed a garden on the storm battered fang of Skellig Michael, that savagely protrudes from the ocean a mile or so from the Irish mainland.but this was a garden focused on survival.

The Benedictine monks worked wonders for gardening in the period wrongly miscalled the dark ages. The Romans had exhausted many of the soils of Europe with their large latifundia, giant farms, which were exploited for a quick profit. The monks ascetic and unselfish lifestyle gave the soils a chance, for the monks took out less than they put in. Soon soils would be flourishing for them. 

Gardening was essentially a peaceful activity. The mediaeval monks regarded it as a higher activity, along with healing the sick, producing food, assisting the poor and governing wisely. The garden provided  vegetables to satisfy the need for food. It is worth noting that the early Benedictines were vegetarian. Meat eating was introduced as monasteries were introduced to northern climes. The kindred spirit of gardening, farming, came into the monastic life about the same time as gardening, but was less of a contributor to the monastic lifestyle than gardening was. Farming increased its role in the monastic life with the institution  of the Cistercians in the twelfth century. The highly ascetic  Cistercians chose remote places to dwell aand such places were less fertile than the lands suitable for gardens.  

The monastic life thrives in peace. Monasteries rely on a peaceful..society around them. They are not like castles, which only exist where there are potential conflicts with the neighbours. Monasteries not only like a peaceful external ambience, but they need to be places where the inmates dwell peacefully with each other. Otherwise there is no point to them. So the monastic garden is a place where people pray, study and interact with each other in   peace. But we cannot confine Christian gardens  to monasteries, for religious institutions are not only monasteries, and not all religious gardens are monastic. Seminaries, where people study to be priests, also  have their gardens, and so do convents of nuns. Islamic gardens have their own individuality, for they while the Muslim faith bans images, the Islamic garden is laid out according to a geometrical pattern, in which the mathematically precise pattern reflects the controlling power of the divine mind, the order of creation. 

 Christian gardens are not designed with the same precision as Islamic gardens as there is greater variety in Christian gardens than there is in Islamic ones. The designers have in mind food, medicine, space for prayer and beauty.. The classic example of the Christian garden is Strabo's Hortulus, which is Latin for Little Garden. Abbot Strabo ruled an abbey on Lake Constance on the borders of Germany and Switzerland. His book , which is written in Latin verse details not only the plants in the garden, but the lay out. There is space for growing food, such as melons, and a variety of  flowers grow, some for herbs, often medicinal, but at others ornamental. The book Hortulus indicates that there were other monastic gardens at other monasteries and there seems to have been correspondence between the monasteries about gardening.

The model for a monastery was the abbey of St Gall in Switzerland which was founded by the fiercely ascetic Irish monk Columbanus and later named after one of his monks. The design involves a... paradise garden. Paradise gardens have been associated with Islam, but this design is not Iunique to Islam, for there is a Christian tradition of paradise  gardens, though Christian gardens do not follow the Islamic design. The aim of the Christian design is to replicate Eden. In fact, replicating Eden  to help in the work of Christ in combatting origiinal sin, the sin committed by our first parents, Adam and Eve. The paradse garden is a place of beauty, adorned with flowers. This garden is often  close to the church  

Related the paradise garden is rge Marian Garden. This specializes in flowers which legend relates to Mary the mother of Jesus.white colours sometimes stand for Mary's purity and blue is often a colour linked to her. Many such flowers are linked with ancient legends remade from their preChristian roots to fitna place in Christian legend. Lilies are often used in the Marian culture.

Besides the paradise garden, which is designed for the religious experience of beauty gardens are for producing food and medicanal plants.religious gardens were built often as walled enclosures to protect the food plants growing there. Culinary and medicinal plants can be beautiful as well as nutritional. Strabo's Hortulus was a protected enclosure. It's defences were partly natural,  the monastery to which it was attached was on a lacustrine island, and the lake formed a defence against predators,  Herbs were a major feature of gardens in the mediaeval period, and these were not found only in religious gardens, for many people grew their own medication. . Much medicine was produced by women, who grew herbs for the medication of their families.  Monasteries had their own herbalist who extended their services to the  medically nèedy peasantry. 

But I have focused on the large scale gardens. There were smaller gardens, some of which were called potagers. These came later than the larger monastic gardens, and sometimes could be quite small. They made use of limited space, which was often all that was available,Le in the smaller religious houses of the friars, such as Franciscans. The word potager is of French origin,deriving from the word for soup.This may indicate the diet which such gardens went to feed.

Religious gardens are a harking back to Eden. They remind us of the original vision of God for the human race, peaceful  work without disharmony. The garden of Eden is a visi9n of life as it should be.