From Book II of Hugh of St Victor’s Didascalicon, where he sets out the seven mechanical arts in turn; agriculture is the fourth. The Didascalicon is a twelfth-century guide to the arts and to reading, and this chapter gives the species of agriculture that the rest of the page is set beside.
Read in contextAgriculture has four species: the arable field, which is assigned to sowing; the planted, for shrubs and trees, such as vineyards, orchards and woods; pasture, such as meadows, vales, wastes and glades;
the flowering, such as gardens and rose-beds.