Flora Unveiled

From Herbals to Walled Gardens j 283

283 283

Although the names of the flowers are not given, Berceo lists some of the fruit, nut, and

other trees with which Mary is associated, and seems to identify the Palm with the Tree of

Knowledge in the Garden of Eden:

She is called Vine, She is Grape, Almond, Pomegranate,

replete with its grains of grace,

Olive, Cedar, Balsam, leafy Palm,

Rod upon which the serpent was raised.

Unlike the Garden of Eden, which belongs to a male deity, Berceo’s unwalled garden is

Mary’s domain. Berceo’s Mary is a strong and powerful personage whose undefiled perfec-

tion requires no earthly walls for protection. Mary inhabits her garden in the same way that

Zeus inhabits Mount Olympus and God resides in Heaven, and, like the male deities, she is

free to come and go as she pleases. Far from being a mere passive vessel for the divine spark,

Berceo’s Mary Theotokos is out in the world performing miracles everywhere— a true god-

dess in nearly every sense of the word.

Notes

1. Morton, A.  G. (1982), History of Botanical Science, Academic Press. However, some his-
   torians have noted that chapter IX is inferior to Theophrastus’s more theoretical works and
   have suggested that it may have been written by his students; see Lynn Thorndike (1924),
   Disputed dates, civilisation and climate, and traces of magic in the scientific treatises ascribed
   to Theophrastus, in Essays on the History of Medicine presented to Karl Sudhof, Charles Singer,
   and Henry Sigerist, eds., Oxford University Press.


2. Singer, C. (1927), The herbal in antiquity and its transmission to later ages, Part 1. Journal
   of Hellenic Studies 47:1– 52. Mithridates’s knowledge of poisons was immortalized in the famous
   legend in which he is said to have protected himself against being poisoned by taking sublethal
   doses to build up his tolerance.


3. Morton, History of Botanical Science.


4. Pliny (1855), Natural History, Book 25, ch. 4; trans. John Bostock; H. T. Riley. Taylor and
   Francis. http:// data.perseus.org/ citations/ urn:cts:latinLit:phi0978.phi001.perseus- eng1:25.4.


5. Janick, J., and K.  E. Hummer (2012), The 1500th Anniversary (512– 2012) of the Juliana
   Anicia Codex: An illustrated Dioscoridean recension. Chronica Horticulturae 52: 9– 15.


6. Pulteney, R.  (1790), Historical and Biographical Sketches of the Progress of Botany in
   England from Its Origin to the Introduction of the Linnaean System. Vol. 1, ch. 25 (“History of the
   Discovery of the Sexes in Plants”), T. Cadell in the Strand., pp. 333– 334.


7. Based on Vindobona, the Roman name for the city that later became Vienna.


8. Harrison, M.  (1989), A Temple for Byzantium:  The Discovery and Excavation of Anicia
   Juliana’s Palace- Church in Istanbul. Harvey Miller, p. 34.


9. Collins, M.  (2000), Medieval Herbals:  The Illustrative Traditions. The British Library
   Studies in Medieval Culture. The British Library and University of Toronto Press, p. 46.


10. Singer, The herbal in antiquity and its transmission to later ages; Blunt, W., and S. Raphael
    (1994), The Illustrated Herbal, Revised Edition. Thames and Hudson.