The calamint that you saw growing in the Medicinal Bed in Bonnefont Cloister Herb Garden is Calamintha nepeta, or lesser calamint. There are several ornamental cultivars of C. nepeta, including ‘Blue Cloud’ and ‘White Cloud.’ Both of these are grown in the Cuxa Cloister Garden, which includes modern forms of some medieval species as well as a good many garden plants unknown to the Middle Ages. The larger-flowered form, Calamintha grandiflora, is also grown as an ornamental, and there is a cultivar called ‘Variegata’ with pink flowers and white variegation on the leaves.

According to the Royal Horticultural Society Index of Plants, which is our standard reference for taxonomy here at The Cloisters, Calamintha officinalis is no longer considered to be a distinct species, but is rather a subspecies of Calamintha nepetadesignated as C. nepeta ssp. glandulosa.

As the name ‘officinalis’ indicates, the latter was an apothecary’s plant; it seems that the large and the small-flowered forms of C. nepeta were used interchangeably in medieval medicine to induce perspiration, prevent tremors and chills, cure skin ailments, and ease asthma and hysteria. (Frank Anderson, German Herbals through 1500, 1984.)

The lesser calamint is known in Tuscany as ‘nepitella,’ and is the herb traditionally used to season porcini mushrooms. You can order seeds for lesser calamint from Sand Mountain Herbs at http://www.sandmountainherbs.com/nepitella_calamint_lesser.html

I have a question concerning another medicinal herb from the cloisters garden: the lesser calamint. I would like to know, which species of calamint is meant by this common name, since I found calmint only under names like calamintha grandiflora, - officinalis, - nepeta etc. Further I would like to know, where I can find seeds of this herb in its natural form. I only found seeds for large flowering garden species.
With very best regards,
Liv

Even though the fennel seeds on the plants out in Bonnefont Garden are past their prime, they are still delicious and I help myself to a few whenever I pass by.

Bulb fennel, known as Florence fennel or finocchio in the U.S. (although finocchio is the Italian designation for fennel in all its forms) belongs to the same species as the herb, Foeniculum vulgare, but is a distinct form known as F. vulgare dulce or F. vulgare azoricum. We don’t grow bulb fennel at The Cloisters. I suspect it dates to the Renaissance, like many other now-familiar vegetable forms, such as heading cabbages. A 16th-century Tuscan recipe in The Medieval Kitchen cited above gives instructions for combining ‘white’ fennel with leek, and for boiling and then frying fennel in oil, much the way bulb fennel is braised today. Even if Florence fennel were known in Italy at an earlier date, I doubt that it would have been familiar elsewhere in Europe until well after the Middle Ages.