EVOLUTION OF THE GARDEN 13 



moonlight, and in the "Roman of Maugis et la Belle 

 Oriande" the hero and heroine "met in a garden 

 to make merry and amuse themselves after they had 

 dined ; and it was the time for taking a little repose. 

 It was in the month of May, the season when the 

 birds sing and when all true lovers are thinking of 

 their love." 



In many of the illuminated manuscripts of these 

 delightful romans there are pictures of ladies gather- 

 ing flowers in the garden, sitting on the sward, or on 

 stone seats, weaving chaplets and garlands; and 

 these little pictures are drawn and painted with such 

 skill and beauty that we have no difficulty in 

 visualizing what life was like in a garden six hun- 

 dred years ago. 



So valued were these gardens not only for their 

 flowers but even more for the potential drugs, salves, 

 unguents, perfumes, and ointments they held in leaf 

 and petal, seed and root, in those days when every 

 castle had to be its own apothecary storehouse that 

 the owner kept them locked and guarded the 

 key. Song, story, and legend are full of incidents 

 of the heroine's trouble in gaining possession of the 

 key of the postern gate in order to meet at midnight 

 her lover who adventurously scaled the high garden 

 wall. The garden was indeed the happiest and the 



