40 



tlior.sncss ami beauty of the place."* At Edmonsbury, the 

 modern Cury, in Suffolk, the Monks of the Monastery then 

 flourishing there, planted a vineyard for their own use, in 1140. 

 The products of the Garden at this period wore by no means so 

 restricted as some authors have estimated. Matthew Paris, in 

 recording the ungenial seasons of L257, says, " Apples were 

 sraroo. Pears still scarcer ; but Cherries, Plumbs, Figs, and all 

 kinds of fruits included in shells (Filberts, Walnuts, &c.) were 

 almost quite destroyed."t So numerous were the various 

 j)lants which engaged their Horticultural skill, that the differ- 

 ent departments occupied separate enclosures. We have seen 

 that the Vineyard was independent of the Orchard, the latter 

 was separated from the Kitchen Garden, and the Ilerbary 

 again was a distinct enclosure. The Monks of Dunstable it is 

 recorded, were at much expence in 1294, in repairing the 

 Walls of their Gardens, and of their Ilerbary. As early as the 

 eighth Century, the list of cultivated Herbs was very numerous, 

 as we learn from the ** Capilarium de Villis et Curtis" in 

 which Charlemagne details to his gardeners, such herbs as he 

 requires them to cultivate. 



As an Art of design and taste Gardening can scarcely be 

 considered to have existed. The Gardens belonging to the 

 castellated dwelHngs of the gentry were confined within the 

 narrow space included by the Glacis, required for defence 

 in those times of feudal broils. In the Orchards without 

 the moats of their Castles, they however ihdulged their 

 taste for ornamental Gardening, which consisted, as it con- 

 tinued to a much later age, in having plants cut into monstrous 

 figures, labyrinths. Sec. Henry the first, formed at Woodstock, 

 A. D. 1123, the first Park of which we have any record. Spel- 

 Kian says he borrowed the idea from the Easterns. It was pro- 

 bably chiefly designed as a preserve for Game (habitationem 



* Gale's Hist, of Ely, v. ii. c ii. + Henry's Hist, of England, b. iv. 

 c. 5i s. i. 



