Romain Rolland (1866-1944) was a French novelist, dramatist, and essayist, an idealist who was deeply involved with pacifism, the fight against fascism, the search for world peace, and the analysis of artistic genius. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1915.
... also extremely popular with the Romans, who introduced them into Britain long before the 1st century AD.
The art of their cultivation was lost during the Dark Ages[?], ...