Synonyms
Apothecary’s Rose
Appothekerrose
Common Provins Rose
Double Red Rose
Officinalis
Old Red Damask
Provins Rose
Red Damask
Red Gallica
Red Rose of Lancaster
Rosa gallica duplex
Rosa gallica maxima
Rosa gallica officinalis
Rosa gallica plena
Rosa gallica var. officinalis Ser.
Rosa gallica var. plena Regal synonym
Rose de Provins
Rosier de Provins ordinaire
This rose of many names is thought to be the once ‘red damask’ and it was the one most often used as the apothecary rose.
Its ancient history may perhaps start with such a rose depicted in a Minoan fresco dated at between 1500 and 1600 BC, which is believed to have been the gallica rose.
Its modern chapter takes us to the Crusades. This rose originally came from “the Land of the Saracens” to Provins in France when in 1240 Thibault Le Chansonnier returned from the Sixth Crusade bringing back the “Rose of Damas and a piece of the true cross”.
It is said that in 1279 Edmond of Woodstock, the youngest son of Edward I of the House of Lancaster, was sent to Provins, a town south of Paris, which at that time was a part of the English realm, to quell a riot. It is alleged that he brought back the Apothecary’s Rose to England to become the Red Rose of Lancaster. This became the Lancaster house symbol during the War of The Roses in the fifteenth century between the Houses of Lancaster and York.