186 



UNICURSAL PROBLEMS 



[CH. IX 



cathedrals at Lucca, Aix in Provence, and Poitiers; and on 

 the floors of the churches of Santa Maria in Trastevere at 

 Kome, San Vitale at Ravenna, Notre Dame at St Omer, and 

 the cathedral at Chartres. It is possible that they were used 

 to represent the journey through life as a kind of pilgrim's 

 progress. 



In England these mazes were usually, perhaps always, cut 

 in the turf adjacent to some religious house or hermitage : and 

 there are some slight reasons for thinking that, when traversed 

 as a religious exercise, a pater or ave had to be repeated at 

 every turning. After the Renaissance, such labyrinths were 

 frequently termed Troy-Towns or Julian's Bowers. Some of 

 the best specimens, which are still extant, or were so until 

 recently, are those at Rockliff Marshes, Cumberland ; Asenby, 

 Yorkshire; Alkborough, Lincolnshire; Wing, Rutlandshire; 

 Boughton-Green, Northamptonshire ; Comberton, Cambridge- 

 shire; Saffron Walden, Essex; and Chilcombe, near Winchester. 



Maze at Hampton Codet. 



The modern maze seems to have been introduced — probably 

 from Italy — during the Renaissance, and many of the palaces 

 and large houses built in England during the Tudor and the 

 Stuart periods had labyrinths attached to them. Those 

 adjoining the royal palaces at Southwark, Greenwich, and 

 Hampton Court were well known from their vicinity to 

 the capital. The last of these was designed by London and 

 Wise in 1690, for William III, who had a fancy for such 

 conceits: a plan of it is given in various guide-books. For 

 the majority of the sight-seers who enter, it is sufficiently 



