Engendered is the Flower: Medieval Gardens Past & Present

press release: Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales brims with images of spring, flowers, and gardens. Because so few books about gardening have survived the Middle Ages, it serves as a significant source of information on the meaning and use of gardens in the fourteenth century. This one-hour illustrated lecture will expand on Chaucer’s work by examining traces of gardens in paintings, tapestries, maps, and sculptures. It includes a virtual tour of contemporary re-created medieval gardens and relevant hand-outs.

Madge Hildebrandt Klais (PhD) is assistant professor emerita in The Information School at UW-Madison, where she teaches courses on campus and online in the history of books and print culture, literature for children and young adults, and information literacy pedagogy. She is the author of The External School in Carolingian Society (E.J. Brill, 1992), a study of early medieval intellectual history.

$10 general admission | Free for members