We do not, however, find any actual description of an indubitable hedge maze in the works of the classic writers. Amongst monastic manuscripts of the middle ages occur a few passages which have been thought to refer to something of the kind. For instance Henry, Abbot of Clairvaux, in speaking metaphorically of labyrinthine entanglements, says, "Non habent certos aditus, semitas ambulant circulares, et in quodam fraudium labyrintho monstra saevissima reconduntur" ("They have no definite approaches, but wander about in circular sidetracks, and most savage monsters are concealed in their labyrinth of deceptions"); but he may very well have been alluding simply to the traditional Cretan Labyrinth and not to actual constructions of his own period.
A perhaps more striking passage is that in a "History of the Counts of Guines, A.D. 800 to 1200," by Lambert of Ardres (Lambertus Ardensis), who lived in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. Speaking of the building of a large residence at Ardres for Count Arnold, in the twelfth century, he says:
"Quam quidem Broburgensis artifex vel carpentarius, in hujus artis ingenio parum discrepans a Dedalo fabrefecit et carpentavit nomina Lodevicus et de ea fere inextricabilem fecit laberinthum et effigiavit, penus penori, cameram camerae, diversorium diversorio concludens ..."; that is to say, a certain workman named Louis of Bourbourg, with a skill in woodwork very little different from that of Daedalus, was employed in building the house and made there a nearly inextricable labyrinth, containing recess within recess, room within room, turning within turning. Here again the description hardly answers to that of a hedge maze, but rather indicates an elaborate architectural structure and probably refers to nothing more than a large wooden house.
The common belief that our own King Henry II concealed his paramour "the fair Rosamond" within a maze at Woodstock may possibly, as sceptical historians aver, have no firmer foundations than that afforded by the imaginative efforts of mediaeval romancers, but from what we have just quoted it is evident that contrivances of the kind described in the legend may have been in existence not only in Henry's time but even in the previous century. In view of the great popularity of the story throughout succeeding generations we cannot altogether ignore it, but we will discuss it more conveniently in a later chapter.
The maze was introduced into the Low Countries, according to a book on Architecture in Belgium, some time during the thirteenth century, but this statement may be merely an inference from Lambert's History quoted above.
In France, as we have already seen, the pavement labyrinths were sometimes known as "dédales" or "maisons de Dédalus," in reference of course to the "house" built by Daedalus for the Minotaur, and in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries we find the same titles applied to mazes formed of shrubs. Charles V, in the fourteenth century, is said to have laid out a maison de Dédale in the gardens of the Hôtel de St. Paul in Paris.
Of interest on this point is an Order of the Court of the Duchy of Anjou, dated September 18, 1477, in which the people of the Duchy were required to pay twelve livres to the keeper of King Réné's castle at Baugé "pour la nourriture des ouyseaux et nestoyer les espèces qu'il a en garde ... et reffaire le Dédalus qui est és jardrins dudit lieu de Baugé."
We also read of a dédalus in the park of Louise de Savoie in 1513.
A sixteenth-century maze is depicted in a landscape by Tintoretto which is exhibited in the Queen's Private Chamber at Hampton Court Palace (No. 524 [787]). In the centre of the maze are seen four ladies seated at a table, their attendants standing by. In the background is the palace to which the maze and surrounding pleasure-grounds evidently appertain.
Hans Holbein, an early contemporary of Tintoretto, is also said to have painted a maze of this description.