Roses and the Sack of Constantinople

Statement of purpose: This project looks at material references of roses in troubadour lyric to explore potential channels for the medieval introduction of roses.
Constantinople represents a strong opportunity for troubadour exposure to rose culture due to Roman cultivation heritage and the fall of the city in 1204 as well as the subsequent crusader occupation for more than half a century. After the fall of Rome, the city was well-situated to maintain gardening expertise. Pliny names Phaselis on the southern coast of modern Turkey as a center of rose production, with large areas of cultivation devoted to the production of attar of rose. Beyond that, Constantinople also inherited the imperial logistics that left Rome flourishing at its height. By the sack of Constantinople in the 13th century, the rose proved to be a popular fixture of Byzantine gardens, as a 12th century manuscript attests. In “Byzantine Gardens and Horticulture in the Late Byzantine Period, 1204-1453: The Secular Sources,” Costas N. Constantinides details the extensive restoration of Byzantine holdings in the wake of the sack of Constantinople and the ensuing Latin occupation until 1261. Constaninides believes the Byzantines followed the instructions of texts like the 10th century Geoponika, an extensive agricultural compendium, until the end of the empire. In discussion of a separate natural history text, the Vienna Dioskorides, Leslie Brubaker notes the development of notation in the 6th century manuscript’s history, particularly the addition of Latin, which she attributes to the Latin occupation. It is plausible that in the sack of Constantinople or the subsequent occupation, copies of the Geoponika or similar texts would have ended up back in Western Europe as a certain reclamation of classical gardening. One has only to think of the Horses of Saint Mark in Venice or the Relic of the Precious Blood in Bruges to see the scattering of treasures from the great Byzantine city. The reliquary in particular, being a perfume phial, supports an advanced appreciation of roses and their utility. Crusading troubadours would have seen the great Byzantine gardens and brought back loot, possibly containing ancient Roman gardening knowledge. Constantinople thus presents many different possibilities for exposure to roses, both during earlier efforts passing through the empire but particularly after the violence of 1204.