Plants in the Middle Ages

Good day dear community, at the beginning I would like to welcome you all to my new contribution and hope you are doing well! Today I would like to discuss an interesting historical topic and hope you can expand your knowledge.

Here are some pictures of different plants and I would like to use them to specifically discuss the use of plants in the Middle Ages where it was formative for the development of civilizations. The power of medicinal plants was discovered already before the Middle Ages and accompanies the humanity since the beginning and plants were used against different types of diseases and in the Middle Ages this topic became more and more popular and also the research became more detailed. Some plants were specifically cultivated because of the healing effects and there were many rulers who used their influence to spread this topic and a well-known example is Charlemagne from the Carolingian dynasty who had cultivated many different medicinal plants in his areas and also other scholars of the Middle Ages as well as the old alchemists dealt a lot with the effect of plants. Much of this knowledge is still of great importance today and some plants from the Middle Ages were considered poisonous or vice versa at that time and in later centuries when the research was more accurate, more precise analyses could be carried out and the importance of medicinal plants could be seen from numerous ancient writings. Some plants were of great importance from an economic point of view to ensure the daily survival of people and so numerous fruits, vegetables or other herbs were planted which served as food or were intended for further processing such as wheat which was essential for the work of the mills.

In addition to the classic useful plants, it was noticed in the Middle Ages that you could make textiles or dyes from some plants and of course some plants were also important to produce wood or ropes from their fibers and in addition to the practical use, the mythology and symbolism is also very interesting and developed more and more. During the Middle Ages, people began to be give their own symbolic meaning to plants and numerous legends have emerged in mythology that reflect the importance and there were numerous examples of plants that have been used for their magical powers or ritual purposes. Not to be neglected is also the heraldry in which the importance has gained ever greater growth and more different flowers were depicted in coats of arms and in addition, more floral elements have been incorporated into the art. Even when it comes to the creation of buildings, plants have played an increasingly important role and more and more courtyard gardens were decorated with plants of all kinds and roughly it can be said that during the Middle Ages one could be distinguished between the use as well as the mystical benefit of plants and over the centuries the names or genetics of the plants have changed more and the Middle Ages was decisively very formative when it came to new discoveries in nature.

Thanks a lot for stopping by and I hope you could learn something new about history! I captured these pictures with my Camera Sony Alpha 6000 plus 55-210 mm lens.