In any large dictionary there will be found detailed several other meanings for the word "bower"—including the sense in which it is used in Bret Harte's "Heathen Chinee"—but with these we are not here concerned.
Strange to say, the use of the word in the combination "Julian-bower" or "Julian's-bower" is usually overlooked or ignored.
The English Dialect Dictionary (Wright) gives the local variants Gelyan-bower, Gillimber and Jilling-bo'or as occurring in Lincolnshire, and Jul-laber as another form of the "Julaber's Barrow" or "Juliberry's Grave" which we have already noticed in Kent. Is the "bower" here the same as "barrow," which is derived from the Anglo-Saxon beorg, meaning, like the German berg, a hill? Or is it only the same word that we have met with in "Rosamond's Bower"? The former suggestion receives some support from the fact that turf mazes are often, though not always, constructed on the top of a hill or mound, but to the writer there is something more attractive in conceiving these works to be associated with the idea of a retreat, particularly if we consider, as we have some reason for doing, that the Julian referred to is the benign and hospitable Saint Julian of the mediaeval legends.
From Brand's "Popular Antiquities" it appears that there were three or four saints of this name, but the most well-known of these was the knight whose deeds are celebrated in the "Gesta Romanorum" and elsewhere, the reputed patron and protector of pilgrims and travellers. The chapel of Domus Dei at Southampton, now used as the French Protestant church, is dedicated to this St. Julian. The legend goes, that on returning home one day Julian discovered a man and woman asleep in his bed, jumped to the hasty conclusion that his wife had been untrue to him and slew the pair where they lay, only to find that they were his parents who had travelled from afar to visit him. In repentance and atonement he then founded a hospice for travellers and afterwards became known as Hospitator, or "the gude herbejour," in which capacity his renown is testified by many a reference in our early literature, e.g., in the works of Chaucer:
"Now up the heed; for al is wel;
Seynt Julyan, lo, bon hostel!
See here the Hous of Fame, lo!"
(The Hous of Fame.)
"An housholder, and that a grete, was he
Seint Julian he was in his contré."
(Canterbury Tales.)
It seems to the writer just as likely that the name Julian's-bower commemorates this popular hero as that it has any connection, as some have maintained, with the invading Caesar or, as suggested by others (see Chapter XI), with his tribune, Quintus Laberius Durus. One can quite easily conjure up in imagination a game or ceremony in which the fatigues of the pilgrim treading the long course of the labyrinth's folds is rewarded by some form of refreshment on at length reaching the secluded retreat of the hospitable saint.
"Surely they find St. Julians inn, which wayfaring men diligently seek."