DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.19489#0054
22 THE FORMAL GARDEN IN ENGLAND n.
century retained features which were distinct
survivals from the mediaeval garden.
.No instances remain of any mediaeval garden,
and we have to form our ideas of it chiefly
from illuminated manuscripts and early paint-
ings. They were walled in, and supplied with
water in conduits and fountains, and planted
closely with hedges and alleys, as appears from
the well-known lines written by James I. of Scot-
land during his captivity at Windsor, 1405-1424.
" Now was there made, fast by the Tower's wall,
A garden fair, and in corneris set
Ane herbere green with wandes long and small,
Railit about, and so with treeis set,
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet
Thet lyf was non, walking there forbye,
That might therein scarce any wight espye—
So thick the boughis and the leaves green
Beshaded all the alleys that there were—
And myddis every herbere might be seenc
The sharp, green, sweete junipere."
Mr. Hazlitt [Gleanings in old Garden
Literature) has collected what evidence there
is of the mediaeval garden in contemporary
literature, and unfortunately there is very
little that throws much light on its arrange-
ment. It was not, however, quite such an
indiscriminate affair as Mr. Hazlitt suggests.
In " The Romance of the Rose " in the British
Museum (Harl. MS. 4425) there is a beautiful
illumination of a garden, dating from the latter
part of the fifteenth century. This garden is
century retained features which were distinct
survivals from the mediaeval garden.
.No instances remain of any mediaeval garden,
and we have to form our ideas of it chiefly
from illuminated manuscripts and early paint-
ings. They were walled in, and supplied with
water in conduits and fountains, and planted
closely with hedges and alleys, as appears from
the well-known lines written by James I. of Scot-
land during his captivity at Windsor, 1405-1424.
" Now was there made, fast by the Tower's wall,
A garden fair, and in corneris set
Ane herbere green with wandes long and small,
Railit about, and so with treeis set,
Was all the place, and hawthorn hedges knet
Thet lyf was non, walking there forbye,
That might therein scarce any wight espye—
So thick the boughis and the leaves green
Beshaded all the alleys that there were—
And myddis every herbere might be seenc
The sharp, green, sweete junipere."
Mr. Hazlitt [Gleanings in old Garden
Literature) has collected what evidence there
is of the mediaeval garden in contemporary
literature, and unfortunately there is very
little that throws much light on its arrange-
ment. It was not, however, quite such an
indiscriminate affair as Mr. Hazlitt suggests.
In " The Romance of the Rose " in the British
Museum (Harl. MS. 4425) there is a beautiful
illumination of a garden, dating from the latter
part of the fifteenth century. This garden is