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Intro Mary Garden
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens
in the U.K.
.
Flowers of Our Lady planting in the
Cloister Garden of Lincoln Cathedral
List of 160 UK Flowers of Our Lady
UK source of information and seeds for the Flowers
of Our Lady and Mary Gardens
Introduction
The Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens in the U.K. are of
special pertinence for the contemporary Mary Garden movement in
that Frances Crane Lillie, who established the first U.S. public
Mary Garden at St. Joseph's Church in Woods Hole, Massachusetts
in 1932 wrote in her leaflet for the garden: "Our inspiration, of
course, was from Catholic England."
Mrs. Lillie told us more specifically that her inspiration had
come from English monasteries where she had seen plantings, in
veneration of the Blessed Virgin, of the symbolical Flowers of
Our Lady from the pre-Reformation oral traditions of the English
countrysides. Then, when she decided to plant the Woods Hole
Mary Garden one of the English monastic gardeners had sent her a
copy of Judith Smith's book, "The Mary Calendar" (Ditchling,
1930), describing the blooming of the Flowers of Our Lady in the
wild through the year, from which she selected the list of
flowers for the garden.
While we were able, when we started our work in 1951, with Mrs.
Lillie's blessing, to confirm the documentation of the old
English Mary-names of flowers, we were unable at that time to
locate any English monastic Mary-Gardeners. (Mrs. Lillie was then
an invalide and unable to travel or correspond.) In fact we were
unsuccessful in finding Mary Gardens anywhere in present-day
England. And as articles about Mary Gardens in the U.S. and
other countries were published in England we began to receive
letters, includng one printed in the London Church Times
inquiring of us where such gardens could be found in the U.K.
We came to understand that the Marian names and symbolism of
flowers of the old oral traditions of the pre-Reformation English
countrysides were largely omitted from English herbals and
gardening books, introduced in the 16th century - thus becoming
virtual, and relegated to dictionaries and collections of garden
lore, rather than being adopted into gardening and religious
practice, as they were in some other countries of Christendom.
Thus, Fr. James J. Galvin, C.SS.R. wrote of Mrs. Lillie's Garden
of Our Lady in his 1946 article, "Lillie Tower", after an earlier
summer assignment to St.Joseph's Church in Woods Hole:
"It struck you that somewhere between Shakespeare's
England and today some shameful thing had happened: that
even the flowers should disown the Mother of God to
barter their common Baptism for a new name. Somehow
about this little patch of soil there was something of a
battle-cry. It was like the launching of some shining
new crusade: to win back for our Lady the flowers of
the field."
It was not until the 1970's that we learned of Oxford Scholar,
Alfred Dowling's "The Flora of the Sacred Nativity" (London,
1900), which evidently was the initial summons - apparently
largely unheeded - for the restoration of the medieval Christian
flower names and symbolism to gardening in England. Then, in the
1980's we learned, from a lovely illustrated leaflet published by
"The Flower Arranger" magazine of London, of a planting of
Flowers of Our Lady in the cloister gardens of Lincoln Cathedral
in 1979 by John Codrington of the Lincoln Herb Society, ̉to
preserve from oblivion some of the ancient legends about the
plants that are associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary."
Now, as a practical beginning of the hoped for general planting
of Mary Gardens in the U.K., information and seeds are being
provided, once again out of monastic tradition, by Sr. Lynn
Marie, eremitic kitchen gardener at the Carmelite monastery in
Quidenham, together with other members of the community, that
through them "Nature and our gardens may speak to our
contemplative heart".
Historical Overview (Skip to narrative)
- Pre-Reformation flower associations with Mary in English
tradition
- St. Bede the Venerable
- Assumption Bundles
- 12th Century English Tour of"relics" of the Virgin from
the Holy Land
- Walsingham
- "seint mary gouldes" (MaryGold)
- Chaucer
- Norwich Priory
- Melrose Abbey
- Shakespeare
- Renaissance and Reformation suppression of medieval Christian flower
names, and their absence in 16th century printed herbals and
gardening books in the U.K.
.
- Survival and preservation of flower Mary-names in U.K. rural oral
traditions
- The U.K Flowers of Our Lady. Sources:
- Britten & Holland, "Dictionary of English Plant Names"
- Oxford English Dictionary: "Lady" in
the names of flowers
- Dowling, "Flora of the Sacred Nativity"
- Poem "The Marygold"
- Medeci Flower Cards
- Smith, "The Mary Calendar"
- Pinchard - Our Lady's Kalendars
- Grigson, "The Englishman's Flora"
- Contemporary planting of the Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens
in the U.K.
- 1953 - Reprinting of U.S. articles on the Flowers of Our
Lady and Mary Gardens
- 1979 - Lincoln Catheral Cloister Planting of Plants of the
Virgin Mary. "The Flower Arranger" descriptive leaflet
- 1983 - "AVE" articles
- 1995 - U.K. Accesses to the Mary's Gardens Internet Web Site
- 1997 - Initiative of Sr. Lynn Marie, O. Carm. and community
- 1997 - London, Catholic Herald article, "Flowers for
the Queen of the May", of May 16, 1997
To us at Mary's Gardens U.S.A. the Flowers of Our Lady and
Mary Gardens in the U.K. have been somewhat of a paradox. In her
printed leaflet, "Our Lady in Her Garden", Frances Crane Lily,
founder the U. S. mother Mary Garden at the Angelus tower of
St.Joseph's Church in Woods Hole, Masssachusetts in 1932, stated
"Our inspiration of course came from Catholic England." Her
listing the Flowers of Our Lady planted or to be planted in the
garden was reproduced almost entirely from "The Mary Calendar", by
Judith Smith, Ditchling, 1930; and she told us she learned of them
"from English monastery gardens."
St. Bede the Venerable spoke in the 8th century of the white lily
as a symbol of the Virgin. The earliest documentation we have
found of a flower named for Mary was a 1373 reference to "seint
mary gouldes" (St. Mary's Gold or Marygold) for the Pot Marigold or
Calendula as an ingredient of a potion to be taken to resist the
plague in England. Chaucer spoke Our Lady as "the Flower of
flowers". Shakespeare made references in his plays to "Mary Buds"
and "LadySmocks". The Oxford English Dictionary listed a number
of plant names containing the words "Lady", Lady's" or "Ladies",
stating that "In names of plants, "Lady's...is in origin a
shortening of Our Lady's. . . in more recent times ladies' has in
some cases been substituted." Britten and Holland's "Dictionary
of English Plant Names" was found to list 50 such names from folk
traditions, and Grigson's "The Englishman's Flora listed 60.
The earliest actual Mary Garden of which we knew (as distinct from
earlier "Mary Garden" wood cuts and drawings of the Virgin and
Child in a garden), was mentioned in the 15th century Obedientary
and Manor Rolls (accounting records) of Norwich Cathedral Priory,
by H. W. Saunders. From this record we learned that the Sacristan
had a "S. Mary's garden". A chapter, "A Monastery Garden", of
Rosetta Clarkson's Green Enchantment describes a "Mary Garden" in
1530 at Melrose Abbey in Scotland, presumably based on some
historical records - although in correspondence with the Melrose
Abbey historical monument organization were unable to learn of any
mention of gardens other than Sir Walter Scott's lines on Melrose,
quoted by Rosetta Clarkson.
"Spreading herbs and flowerets bright
Glistened with dew of night,
Nor herb nor flower glisten'd there
But was carved in the cloister's archs as fair."
Shortly after we started our work in 1950-1951, we were given
several Flowers of Our Lady holy cards published in England by the
Medeci Press, and also two Flower Kalendars of Our Lady, for 1954
and 1955 published at St. Raphaels with water color illustrations
of Our Lady's Flowers. During this period three articles on the
Flowers of Our Lady and Mary Gardens published in the U.S. were
republished in English magazines.
Then, in the 1980's we learned through a leaflet and composite
flower painting published by "The Flower Arranger" of the Flowers
of Our Lady planted in the cloister garden of Lincoln Cathedral in
1979 by the late John Codrington of the Lincoln Herb Society "to
preserve from oblivion some of the ancient legends about the plants
that are associated with the Blessed Virgin Mary." We hope to
learn more of this garden.
In 1984 our article, "Flowers of the Virgin Mary" was published in
"AVE", publication of the (Anglican) Society of Mary, proposing the
planting of Mary Gardens of Flowers of Our Lady in the U.K.; and
subsequent articles were published in "AVE" on the rose and lily as
symbols of Mary by the late Horace Keast, of the Society.
We conclude there must be numerous private Mary Gardens in the
U.K., and it is our fond hope that the glorious tradition of
English gardens will be extended to continue the tradition of the
Flowers of Our Lady with the resulting planting of many beautiful
Mary Gardens available to the public at churches and institutions,
in addition to the cloister garden at Lincoln Cathedral.
Currently our Internet Mary's Gardens Web Site, started on
September 8, 1995, has been accessed by hundreds of persons from
the U.K.. Email communications have told of convent and home Mary
Gardens started. Now, our Mary's Gardens Associate, Sr. Lynn Marie,
OCD, eremitic kitchen gardener at the Carmelite monastery in
Quidenham, has, with other members of the community, undertaken to
be a UK source of information and seeds for the Flowers of Our Lady
and Mary Gardens.
An article, "Flowers for the Queen of the May", describing the
initiative of Sr. Lynn Marie, was published in the London, Catholic
Herald of May 16, 1997.