Page:Of Six Mediaeval Women (1913).djvu/269

, which his fancy makes to quit plague-stricken Florence for the country, where they tell stories to prevent monotony, he relates that, after dining in the cool shade, and before the story-telling begins, "the gentlemen walked with the ladies into a goodly garden, making chaplets and nosegays of divers flowers, and singing silently to themselves." Both sexes wore them on festive occasions, and in summer young girls wore no head-covering save a garland. The knight at the tournament decked his helm with a chaplet of some chosen flower, deftly woven by the fair one in whose name he made venture; and many a merry company, wreathed with flowers or foliage, rode forth on May-day, with trumpets and flutes, to celebrate the festival.

Another favourite flower for garlands was the cornflower, as we learn from the poets, who tell of ladies dancing the carole (a popular dance in which all moved slowly round in a circle, singing at the same time), their heads crowned with garlands of cornflower. Violets and periwinkles, and meadow flowers, white, red, and blue, were also gathered to indulge this pretty fancy.

The gillyflower is another flower frequently mentioned. This name has been applied to various flowers, but originally it belonged to the carnation, and was used for such in Shakespeare's time. In the Roman de la Rose it is called the gillyflower-clove, thus definitely defining it. One of its virtues, according to an old writer, was "to comfort the spirites by the sence of smelling,"