THE GARDENS OF THE MIDDLE AGES 



^S 



in some part of this garden can the orchards be 

 planted. And let a fishpond be made in which many 

 generations of fish shall be fed, and also let there be 

 hares, stags, roebucks, rabbits and such animals as are 

 not rapacious. And at the top of some small trees 

 near the palace let there be built a kind of house 

 having a roof and walls of copper wire finely netted, 

 where shall be put pheasants, partridges, nightingales, 

 blackbirds, goldfinches, linnets, and all kinds of singing 

 birds. And let the rows of the trees in the garden of 

 the palace be far from the forest, in order that from 

 the palace it may be seen what the animals in the 

 garden are doing. There also ought to be made in 

 this garden a dwelling-place, with walks and bowers 

 of trees only, in which the king or the queen may 

 sojourn with their barons in dry weather." 



The early Britons owed to the Romans all the 

 knowledge they possessed of horticultural science. 

 Strabo, writing in the fourth century, says " The 

 people of Britain are entirely ignorant of the art of 

 cultivating gardens as well as of the other parts of 

 agriculture." With the fall of the Roman Empire 

 a death-blow was struck to horticulture, and garden- 

 ing as an art of design entirely disappeared during the 

 stormy centuries that succeeded. Shelter and defence 

 are implied by the etymology of our words " yard " 

 and " garden," and such were the leading characteristics 

 of the little enclosed spaces devoted by our Saxon 

 ancestors to such plant culture as then obtained. 



In the latter half of the eleventh century the 

 advent of the Normans added considerably to the 

 general comforts of living, but again during the 

 troublous period following the Conquest the quiet 

 pleasures of a garden could hardly be enjoyed. 



The earliest writers on horticulture in England 

 were monks, and the most valuable authority, upon 



A CASTLE COURTYARD, 

 FIFTEENTH CENTURY, 

 GRIMANI BREVIARY. 



