Page:A History of Domestic Manners and Sentiments in England During the Middle Ages.djvu/451

 and Sentiments. 431 I have had occafion before to obfen'e that garlands and chaplets of flowers were in great requeft 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 fplendid manufcript " Heures" of Anne of Brittany in the Imperial Library in Paris, where it illuftrates the month of May, repre tents the interior of a garden, with a lady thus employed with her maidens. This garden appears to be a fquare piece of ground, furrounded by a high wall, with a central compartment or lawn enclofed ~^''^T^tf=y=tf=t4=tPL:#=ij^ ^^-^- ^Jr-. M^MMMmMMm r-^^-v'-^,:^^'^ No. 269. ^ Lady iiaJ her Maidens luea-v'mg Garlands. by a fence of trellis-work and a hedge of rofe trees. Piftures of gardens will alfo be found in the MS. of the "Romance of the Rofe" already referred to, and in other illuminated books, but the illuminators were unable to reprefent the elaborate defcriptions of the poets. Befides flowers, every garden contained herbs for medicinal and other purpofes, fuch 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 caftle where Ihe lives, to gather herbs for making a deadly poifon. This incident is reprefented in our cut No. 2;o, taken from a magnificent illuminated manulcript of the profe verlion of this romance in the Imperial Library in Paris. I'he garden