DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.49977#0082
60
A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.
of to-day would astonish the possessors of gardens in the Middle
Ages, and the varied forms and colours would bewilder them,
yet in some of our finest-looking roses they would miss, what
to them was the essential characteristic of a rose, its sweet
scent! Nothing more readily than the subtle fragrance of a rose
can conjure in our minds a dream of summer, and many a one
since the days of Chaucer has experienced what the poet felt
when, approaching a rose-garden, he exclaimed :
“The savour of the roses swote
Me smote right to the herte rote,”
or when crowns of roses and lilies perfume the air,
“ The swete smel, that in myn herte I find
Hath changed me al in another kind.”
There were both red and white double roses, as well as the
single, and the common dog-rose and sweetbriar. They were
planted along the walls, or singly, here and there in the garden,
or clambering over the arbour. The double-red (a variety of
Rosa Gallica) was the most prized, and as if this red rose was
the most lovely thing that could be imagined, it is thus brought
into an “ Ave Maria” of the early fifteenth century:—
“ Heil be thou, Marie, that art flour of alle
As roose in eerbir so reed 1 ” *
Chaucer praises the buds of the double rose, which are more
lasting than the quickly-falling petals of the single kinds :
“ I love wel sweitie roses rede :
For brode roses, and open also,
Ben passed in a day or two ;
But knoppes -f wilen fresshe be
Two dayes atte leest or three.”
When the red or white rose became the badge of two contending
parties, it doubtless depended on the side taken by the owner of
the garden which colour prevailed therein. The “ fresh redde
rose newe, against the sommer sunne,” J or the “white rose of
England that is frishe and wol not fade. Both the rote & the
* Early Eng. Text Soc. f = buds.
f Assembly of Fowles. By Chaucer.
A HISTORY OF GARDENING IN ENGLAND.
of to-day would astonish the possessors of gardens in the Middle
Ages, and the varied forms and colours would bewilder them,
yet in some of our finest-looking roses they would miss, what
to them was the essential characteristic of a rose, its sweet
scent! Nothing more readily than the subtle fragrance of a rose
can conjure in our minds a dream of summer, and many a one
since the days of Chaucer has experienced what the poet felt
when, approaching a rose-garden, he exclaimed :
“The savour of the roses swote
Me smote right to the herte rote,”
or when crowns of roses and lilies perfume the air,
“ The swete smel, that in myn herte I find
Hath changed me al in another kind.”
There were both red and white double roses, as well as the
single, and the common dog-rose and sweetbriar. They were
planted along the walls, or singly, here and there in the garden,
or clambering over the arbour. The double-red (a variety of
Rosa Gallica) was the most prized, and as if this red rose was
the most lovely thing that could be imagined, it is thus brought
into an “ Ave Maria” of the early fifteenth century:—
“ Heil be thou, Marie, that art flour of alle
As roose in eerbir so reed 1 ” *
Chaucer praises the buds of the double rose, which are more
lasting than the quickly-falling petals of the single kinds :
“ I love wel sweitie roses rede :
For brode roses, and open also,
Ben passed in a day or two ;
But knoppes -f wilen fresshe be
Two dayes atte leest or three.”
When the red or white rose became the badge of two contending
parties, it doubtless depended on the side taken by the owner of
the garden which colour prevailed therein. The “ fresh redde
rose newe, against the sommer sunne,” J or the “white rose of
England that is frishe and wol not fade. Both the rote & the
* Early Eng. Text Soc. f = buds.
f Assembly of Fowles. By Chaucer.