French and English Gardens of the Middle Ages

French and English Gardens of the Middle Ages

 

The roman de la rose gives the most effective doable plan of each the french and english gardens of the middle ages. it had been chiefly written by guillaume de loris, in the primary 1/2 the thirteenth century, and was in all probability well known in england before it had been translated by chaucer into english. there are many manuscript copies of it containing descriptions within the text, accompanied by illustrations giving vivid pictures of the pleasure garden. its form ;the walls enclosing it with their surrounding moat, the subdivisions of latticework, the 'flowery mede, ' shaded by fruit trees, with a fountain in its center, and therefore the stone-coped beds, containing clipped shrubs and different smaller plants&mdash ;are clearly shown from varied points of read. in the foremost vital of those illustrations ( that is on the other page, and was taken from a fourteenth-century flemish manuscript preserved at the british museum ), the garden is shown as a full, ornamented with several quaint details. it's enclosed by a crenellated wall, surrounded by a moat. the subdivisions are formed by a fence of picket trellis-work, on the highestmost railing of that is balanced a peacock. within the left-hand division may be a copper fountain head, where the water, spouting from lions' mouths, drips into a circular basin, and runs off through a marble channel embedded within the turf. velvety grass, thickly sprinkled with daisies, surrounds the fountain and forms a soft seat for the very little company of merrymakers who are singing and taking part in upon musical instruments. a garden, per the derivation of the word from zerd, garth, or yard ( 3 nouns from constant aryan root because the french word jardin ), originally signified a walled other then unroofed enclosure containing cultivated vegetation. sometimes this vegetation principally consisted of herbs, grass, or fruit trees. this enclosure protected the vegetation from marauders, and secluded its occupants. privacy was a awfully vital characteristic of the garden. within the castle there was scant chance for confidential conversation. therefore when folks wished to talk while not being overlooked or overheard, they were apt to retire to the pleasure garden. the earliest fences were commonly wattled, that's, woven of osiers. others, additional ornamental, were formed of rails or of pickets, and painted inexperienced. hedges typically enclosed the later gardens, rather than walls. the bushes used for this purpose were privet ( so known as probably as a result of it served to insure privacy ), thorn, sweetbrier, and yew. moats were conjointly common, the water accommodating fish and swans.