Yew trees and churchyards - plantlore

[Jodie]

I've been reading Roy Vickery's book "A dictionary of plant lore"
which contains anecotes giving various reasons for finding yews
near churchyards.

Each paragraph refers to one anecdote - I've not put the reference
in but let me know if anyone wants more details.

"It was the custom to plant yew trees in churchyards, not only to provide
shade, but to provide wood for the bows. Every Sunday the bowmen
practised their shooting, and many church walls have deep indentations,
evidence that the 'yewmen' or yeomen, sharpened their arrows on the
sandstone walls"

"Yew trees were planted in graveyards as they thrived on corpses and
were then readily available to make excellent bows"

"Yew trees were planted in churchyards to prevent archers from
procuring suitable branches for making bows and thus having the
weapons to oppose the 'King's Men'. To cut a tree in a churchyard
was a punishable offence!"

"Yew-wood is used for making bows, and it was therefore necessary
for each town to have a supply of yew trees. Before enclosure, a
village's livestock would wander around unchecked... As yew trees
are poisonous they had to be planted out of reach of the grazing
animals, and so they were planted in the churchyard, which was the
only area in the village which was fenced off."

"I was always given to believe that yews were planted round churches
to discourage farmers from letting their cattle stray from common
land to consecrated."

"In the country churches are usually surrounded by fields... yew
berries are poisonous if eaten by cattle. Local farmers round the
church and churchyard are therefore willing to keep church hedges
and / or fences surrounding them in good repair... A cow broke into
our churchyard on Christmas Day 20 years ago and died of eating
berries from our ancient tree... the farmer concerned has kept our
boundaries beautifully ever since!"

"The Druids regarded the yew as sacred and planted it close to their
temples. As the early Christians often built their churches on these
consecrated sites, the association of yew trees in churchyards was
perpetuated." [Label at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew - 1993]

Keywords: plant lore, plantlore, Yew, churches, church yard, churchyard

 

[Boosh]

Thanks for that Jodie, the Yew is such a lovely tree.

We have one in our local churchyard that has been carbon dated at over 1000 years old, as you can gather it is pretty big. Where it has split whilst growing it's hollow inside and a small person could easily get inside it.

Boosh.

 

[Snufkin]

Yew planted in churchyards as a supply of bow wood is a myth. English yew doesn't grow slowly enough to provide the dense, high ring count wood you need for a warbow. The majority of bowstaves were imported from mountainous areas of Spain or Italy. At one time there was an import tax on wine that stated for every cask of wine one bow stave must also be imported. I think it even got to as high as six staves per cask at one point.
My personal theory is early christians usurping pagan holy sites and icons as can still be seen in many "christian" traditions.

 

[JonnyP]

Some interesting info there Jodie...I always thought that yews were planted in churchyards to keep evil spirits away.....

 

[British Red]

My understanding was more that churchyards were one of the only properly stone walled areas making them stock proof. Due the poisonous nature of yews, those in other areas were uprooted leaving those in churchyards to become some of the only large specimens.

Red

 

[easilyled]

Excellent post, thanks for putting that together. I think the one in our village churchyard is over 1000 years old as well.

 

[norm]

The story I've heard was that the Yews were planted pre-Christianity to ward off evil spirits. The early Christians later hijacked those same sites to build their churches, but still not quite disbelieving the older traditions and beliefs, they left the Yews in place, which now being in a "sacred" protected place just carried on growing...!!

 

[Gmac]

In the village of Fortingall in Perthshirewhere you can see Europe's oldest tree - the 3000 year old Fortingall Yew. According to local legend Fortingall also has the strange claim to being the birthplace of Pontius Pilate!

 

[Jodie]

There are some nice pictures of that Yew on Google, but yew is not my
favourite tree (ash is).

I first heard of that Pontius Pilate story when my dad, who was singing
the part in some music / singing thing was told how appropriate it was
that a Scot (parents are Scottish) was singing that role. My dad enjoyed
that anecdote, regardless of its grounding in reality