406 THE GARDEN AND ITS DEVELOPMENT. 



flowers which fashion made indispensable for the elegant luxaiy of the 

 Romans. Potted plants were also placed upon the balustrade between 

 the pillars. To these were added many slender hernia? and small 

 statuettes distributed between the plants. Water was usually brought 

 in as an ornamental feature; especially popular were niches; about a 

 meter in height ornamented with stone or shell mosaic, into which the 

 water from the Pompeiian aqueduct plashed over a few steps and was 

 then led into a little basin in the middle of the garden. Within a 

 space of a few paces square the little garden was able to satisf}^ all 

 demands. 



While the great park-like gardens of imperial Rome and their imita- 

 tions early disappeared under the tread of the northern invaders, leav- 

 ing no trace behind, the Roman house garden, under the protection of 

 the church, was destined to survive all catastrophes. As the early 

 Christian architects adopted for the ground plan of their churches the 

 arrangement of rooms in which they held their first sacred service — 

 namely, that of the Roman atrium and its annexes — so they at the same 

 time adopted the peristyle garden; for the garden, surrounded by a 

 pillared portico, which as a "paradise" almost invariably accompanied 

 the Roman basilica where space permitted, Avas nothing else than the 

 Roman house garden transferi'ed from the narrow dimensions of a 

 private house to the monumental style of the victorious church. Indeed 

 it here obtained quite another function, for it was used to aflord an 

 honorable burial to those among the laity who were most faithful to 

 the church, as, for example, even the Emperor Otto II, who in 983 

 was interred at Rome in the garden of the old basilica of St. Peter. 

 In the course of time the original garden plot had to yield to a burial 

 plot, and the church garden became a churchyard in our modern sense. 



We find that the basilica garden sufl'ered less change in the monas- 

 teries. There the crosswise form of the pathway was preserved, and only 

 one-fourth being set aside for interments, the remainder was used as 

 a garden for the living. Therefore, as in the old Roman house gardens, 

 we find in these the plot divided into four rectangles by two paths 

 whose cross-like form now had a symbolic significance, and in the mid- 

 dle, at the intersection of the paths, there is again found a l)asin of 

 water or more frequentl}^ a fountain. Among the flowers along the 

 cross walks there seldom failed to grow balm, basil, and all the aro- 

 matic herbs that were the materials of the so-called pharmacy of the 

 monastery, which has spread the fame of the Benedictines and the Car- 

 thusians even to-day throughout Protestant countries. 



The Roman cross-walk garden was soon brought to Germany and 

 was systematically established by the Benedictines at Charlemagne's 

 court, as a testimony to which we still possess an important document. 

 A clerical person of the court sent to the Abbot Gospert, who wished 



