96 ENGLISH PLEASURE GARDENS 



For there was many a bridde syngyng 

 Through-out the yerde al thringyng. 

 In many places were nyghtyngales, 

 Alpes, fynches, and wodewales." 



Theherbary. If a large number of herbs were cultivated, they 

 were sometimes set apart in an herbary. But many 

 flowers which are now considered purely ornamental 

 were then supposed to have healing properties, or to 

 be fit ingredients for sauces and savouries; so the 

 herbary was not strictly devoted to the plants we 

 should consider as herbs. Besides the plants grown for 

 medicinal and culinary purposes, were others intended 

 to be distilled into love philters and perhaps poisons. 

 The orchard in the Middle Ages was practically 



The orchard, indistinguishable from the garden or pleasaunce. A 

 precious description of it, which might equally well be 

 applied to the garden of the period, was written by 

 Albert the Great in a chapter of his " De Naturis 



Description Rerum," called " De Plantatione Viridariorum." " In the 



the Great, first place," he says, "the whole site must be planted 

 with the finest grass seed trodden into the ground by 

 foot, forming an actual carpet of verdure, than which 

 nothing could be smoother than the level surface. 



" At one of the extremities facing the south, trees 

 were grown, pears, apples, plums, laurel, cypress, and 

 the like, interlaced with vines whose foliage protected 

 the turf and furnished a fresh and agreeable shade. 



