60 
House Garden 
The Rcnaissaticc gar¬ 
den as it appeared in 
the tapestries ivas an 
elaborate construction 
of classic ruins set in 
an almost cultivated 
landscape. Tapestries 
by courtesy of P. W. 
French Company 
GARDENS in TAPESTRIES 
F?'Of/i the Middle Ages up to the l8th Century Tapestries Fef ected the 
Changing Garden Taste o f the Times 
PHYLLIS ACKERMAN 
G ardens were a forgotten luxury in 
the Middle Ages. When life is safe 
only within fortified walls and neither easy 
nor peaceful even there flowers for their 
own sake become a fantastic extravagance, 
'^’et, though the turmoil and the limitations 
of the long, hard centuries forbade such a 
gentle pleasure as gardening, the innate love 
for tended growing things 
could not die, and as soon 
as the social strain relaxed, 
even a little, the flower 
plot returned. At first 
only a timid and much 
harassed experiment, har¬ 
assed because every fre¬ 
quent assault meant its 
destruction, the garden 
grew in importance and 
size and permanence until 
when the 15th Century 
brought relative calm it 
was a necessary adjunct 
to the courtly life. Lords 
and ladies betook them¬ 
selves there on fair days to 
hear a concert, play a 
game of drafts or just 
converse. 
So the tapestries of the 
natural, full of a random scattering of little 
native flowers, columbines, daisies, violets, 
foxgloves and all the unpretentious favor¬ 
ites. Only the trees show a more sophis¬ 
ticated plan, the apples always carefully 
trimmed into a little round globe atop a 
lanky stem and the oranges low bushes 
shaped into balls or collides. 
The most important fea¬ 
ture of these 15th Century 
tapestry gardens, is, how¬ 
ever, the fountain. It 
seems almost omnipresent 
in the period for it is 
conspicuous in the minia¬ 
tures as well as in the 
tapestries. Indeed, any 
rank tangle of wild flowers 
seems to have sufficed to 
make a garden if only the 
fountain was in the center. 
And some of these foun¬ 
tains are quite elaborate, 
the water splashing down 
{Continued on page 96 ) 
Fountains and formal 
plots insphed the tapes¬ 
tries of the ijth and iSth 
Centuries 
century show them, sumptuously dressed 
jirincesses plucking the harp or drawing 
music from quaint portable organs and 
shapely youths posing beautiful firm hands 
on their lutes; or intimate couples at either 
side of the game table, intent on the next 
move, or pairs and groups merely rambling 
amiably. Their gardens are simple and 
