MEDIEVAL GARDENS 1 



No one can study French mediaeval lore, or 

 Gothic cathedral, or Book of Hours, without 

 realising how great a love of Nature prevailed 

 in the late Middle Ages. The poems tell of 

 spring, " the season of delight," of gardens which 

 suffice " for loss of Paradise," and of birds " with 

 soft melodious chant." In the dim stillness of 

 the cathedral, Nature is expressed in infinite 

 variety. Foliage grows in the hollows of the 

 mouldings, and sometimes, as at Chartres, even 

 the shafts, as they tower into the gloom, end in 

 half-opened leaves, suggestive of spring, of hope, 

 and of aspiration. Many a sunny fa9ade shows 

 us scenes of rural life sowing, reaping, vine- 

 dressing, and so forth fashioned as a calendar 

 in stone, and many a peasant must have rejoiced 

 as he saw himself and his occupation thus 

 represented in effigy. Fortunately for the poor 

 toiler, the Church not only taught that " to 

 labour is to worship," but further honoured 

 work by thus representing it at the very entrance 



1 The quotations from the Roman de la Rose are taken from 

 Mr. F. S. Ellis's translation, published by Messrs. J. M. Dent & Co. 

 in the "Temple Classics." 



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