THE MEDIEVAL PLEASAUNCE 



93 



With sicamour was set and eglatere, Arbours. 



Wrethen in fere so well and cunningly 

 That every branch and leafe grew by mesure 

 Plain as a bord, of oon height by and by. 



***** 



And shapen was this herber roofe and all 

 As is a prety parlour." 



"The Flower and the Leaf," CHAUCER. 



Water in various forms was always, if possible, intro- water- 

 duced into the garden. Fish-ponds, bathing pools, and 

 fountains were common. Usually 

 the central and most ornamental 

 architectural feature of the pleas- 

 aunce was a fountain. The earliest 

 of an ornamental appearance were 

 apparently of Oriental design, similar 

 to the well-known one in the clois- 

 ters of Monreale above Palermo, and 

 to that reproduced from a photo- 

 graph taken of an early piece of 

 tapestry in the South Kensington 

 Museum. But, of course, architectural treatment of foun- 

 tains, as of other details, underwent the same evolution 

 from Romanesque to Gothic, and from Gothic to 

 Renaissance, as did architecture in general. 



A maze or labyrinth was frequently laid out in or 

 near the garden. An early form seems to have con- 

 sisted of a network of underground passages, making 



