“Truly,” quod she, “in the garden grene
Of many a swete and sundry flowre
She maketh a garlonde that is veray shene,
Wythe trueloves wrought in many a coloure,
Replete with swetenes and dulcet odoure;
And all alone, wythout company,
Amyddes an herber she sitteth plesauntly.”
From the description of this “gloryous” garden that follows, we might imagine that the practice of cutting or training trees and flowers into fantastic shapes, as was done with box-trees in the last century, had prevailed among the gardeners of the fifteenth. The garden of La Bel Pucel is described as being—
Wyth Flora paynted and wrought curyously,
In divers knottes of marvaylous gretenes;
Rampande lyons stode up wondersly,
Made all of herbes with dulcet swetenes,
Wyth many dragons of marvaylos likenes,
Of dyvers floures made ful craftely,
By Flora couloured wyth colours sundry.
Amiddes the garden so moche delectable
There was an herber fayre and quadrante,
To paradyse right well comparable,
Set all about with floures fragraunt;
And in the myddle there was resplendyshaunte
A dulcet spring and marvaylous fountaine,
Of golde and asure made all certaine.
* * * * *
Besyde whiche fountayne, the moost fayre lady
La Bel Pucel was gayly syttyng;
Of many floures fayre and ryally
A goodly chaplet she was in makynge.
No. 269. A Lady and her Maidens weaving Garlands.
I have had occasion before to observe that garlands and chaplets of flowers were in great request in the middle ages, and the making of them was a favourite occupation. Our cut [No. 269], taken from the illuminated calendar prefixed to the splendid manuscript “Heures” of Anne of Brittany in the Imperial Library in Paris, where it illustrates the month of May, represents the interior of a garden, with a lady thus employed with her maidens. This garden appears to be a square piece of ground, surrounded by a high wall, with a central compartment or lawn enclosed by a fence of trellis-work and a hedge of rose trees. Pictures of gardens will also be found in the MS. of the “Romance of the Rose” already referred to, and in other illuminated books, but the illuminators were unable to represent the elaborate descriptions of the poets. Besides flowers, every garden contained herbs for medicinal and other purposes, such as love-philtars, which were in great repute in the middle ages. In the romance of “Gerard de Nevers” (or La Violette), an old woman goes into the garden attached to the castle where she lives, to gather herbs for making a deadly poison. This incident is represented in our cut [No. 270], taken from a magnificent illuminated manuscript of the prose version of this romance in the Imperial Library in Paris. The garden is here again surrounded by a wall, with a postern gate leading to the country, and we have the same trellis fencings as before. It appears to have been the usual custom thus to enclose and protect the beds in a garden with a trellis fence.
No. 270. A Lady gathering Herbs.
The various games and exercises practised by people out of doors seem to have differed little at this time from those belonging to former periods, except that from time to time we meet with allusions to kinds of amusement which have not before been mentioned, although they were probably well known. Among the drawings of the borders of illuminated manuscripts, from the thirteenth century to the beginning of the sixteenth, we meet with groups of children and of adults, which represent, doubtless, games of which both the names and the explanations are lost; and sometimes we are surprised to find thus represented games which otherwise we should have supposed to be of modern invention. One very curious instance may be stated. In the now rather celebrated manuscript of the French romance of “Alexander,” in the Bodleian Library at Oxford, which was written and illuminated in the fourteenth century, we have representations of a puppet show, which appears to be identical with our modern Punch and Judy. We copy one of these curious early drawings in our cut [No. 271].