FRENCH AND ENGLISH GARDENS OF THE MIDDLE AGES

The Roman de la Rose gives the best possible idea of both the French and English gardens of its Middle Ages. It was chiefly written by Guillaume de Loris, in the first half of the thirteenth century, and was probably well known in England before it was translated through Chaucer into English. able are several manuscript copies of it containing descriptions in its text, accompanied by illustrations giving vivid pictures of the pleasure garden. Its form-the walls enclosing it with their surrounding moat, the subdivisions of latticework, the "flowery mede," shady by brood trees, with a fountain in its center, and the stone-coped beds, containing clipped shrubs and other smaller plants-are clearly shown from contrastive points of leaning.

In the most important of these illustrations (which is on its opposite page, again was enticed from the fourteenth-century Flemish manuscript preserved at the British Museum), the garden is shown because of a whole, ornamented with divers quaint details. essential is enclosed by the crenellated wall, surrounded by a moat. the subdivisions are formed by a fence of wooden trellis-work, on the topmost railing of which is balanced a peacock. In the left-hand division is a copper originator head, where its water, spouting from lions' mouths, drips into a circular basin, further runs poison through a marble channel embedded in the turf. velvety grass, thickly sprinkled with daisies, surrounds the fountain and forms a soft seat for the dwarfish company of merrymakers who are singing and playing upon musical instruments.

A garden, according to the commencement of the word from zerd, garth, or yard (three nouns from the same Aryan root as the French data Jardin), originally signified a walled but unroofed enclosure containing cultivated vegetation. Usually this surge principally consisted of herbs, grass, or fruit trees.

This enclosure licensed the vegetation from marauders, and secluded its occupants. Privacy was a exceptionally money characteristic of the garden. Inside the castle expert was scant opportunity over confidential conversation. So when people wished to talk without being disregarded or overheard, they were apt to take off to the pleasure garden.

the earliest fences were commonly wattled, that is, woven of osiers. Others, more ornamental, were formed of rails or of pickets, and painted esplanade. Hedges often included the later gardens, instead of walls. the bushes used for this purpose were privet (thus called perhaps because corporal served to insure privacy), thorn, sweetbrier, further yew. Moats were also common, the water accommodating fish and swans.More Info about;
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