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imitated them. He went to Sicily in 1270, and when he came back to Europe built a water garden at Hesdin in Picardy. His garden in turn attracted the admiration of visitors astonished and delighted by the fountains and the water tricks it contained.
In future, European gardens were customarily provided with fountains. Medieval manuscripts of a more worldly kind frequently show women cooling their feet and even bathing in the pools and channels they fed.
The gardens and the plant species they housed burgeoned and became increasingly lavish as the centuries passed. Ladies are now shown being able to relax and sun themselves in safety, closed within the expanding walls of the castle gardens. Amongst the best known illustrations of this are of spring and summer in the Tres Riches Heures. As well, the garden decorations became more lavish, including summer houses and herb covered turf seats. Queen Eleanor upon her return from Crusade in the late thirteenth century built a large garden at Rhuddlan Castle. This garden included fountains and turf seats for her ladies. The castle itself was built as part of a chain of military fortifications to hold Wales: the design undoubtedly inspired by the castles seen by her husband Edward I during their journey to the east.
Thus, the Crusading experience softened the harsh life of a military encampment on the remote frontier of Western Europe.
And so, we find the Dreamer of the Romance of the Rose encountering men and maids dancing to the tunes of Dame Gladness in his enchanted garden, stepping daintily with turns and farandoles upon the tender lawn. Accompanied by flautists and minstrels and violists they sing a rondelet, a tune from Lorraine. A troop of jugglers too accompanied the mirthmaking, and girls with tambourines - another eastern import - marking the end of each tune by throwing their instruments high into the air, and catching them gracefully on finger tip. All this is in itself reminiscent of the court music of Arabian lands, where professional dance troupes had long since enlivened formal gatherings with performances accompanied by drum, pipe and stringed instrument.23
Even the very clothes of the maidens - sheerest cloth - owe a tribute to the east, and their insinuating motions as each dancer approached, till almost clasping, each one on her partner's darting lips just grazed.
Evidence from poetry, romance and illumination suggest that the sweet meadows such as Eleanor's garden were the most favoured sites for lover's trists: the formal garden of the castle had blossomed at the right moment to provide a stage for the new rituals of courtly love.
1. Pernoud, p.61.
2. Ibid., p.60.
3. M Berriedale-Johnson The British Museum Cookbook British Museum, London, 1987, pp 62-71.
4. Mead, The English Medieval Feast, p. 348.
5. Chronicles of the Crusades, p.180.
6. Mead, The English Medieval Feast, p.228.
7. Ibid., p.73.
9. Ibid., p. 78.
10. Ibid., p.74.
11. British Museum Cookbook, pp.89-101. See also L.J. Sass To the King's Taste Richard II's Book of Feasts and Recipes Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 1975.
12. Mead, p.77.
13. William of Malmesbury, English Historical Documents II p.316.
14. Coulton, Life in the Middle Ages, pp.52-3.
15. Ibid.,, pp.47-9.
16. Scott, Everyone a Witness, pp.63-4.
17. Mead, p.27.
18. Ibid., p. 40.
19. 'Richard de Templo' The Third Crusade K. Fenwick (ed.) Folio, London, 1978, p.16. There is confusion over the identity of the author: he may well be also known as Richard the Canon, Geoffrey de Vinsauf or Ambroise.
20. P. Verlet et al Great Tapestries The Web of History From the 12th to the 20th Century tr. P.R. Oberson Lausanne, Switzerland, 1965, pp. 38-9.
21. Described more fully in R. King, The Quest for Paradise, Mayflower, New York, 1979, Chapter 7, passim.
22. Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meun The Romance of the Rose trans. H. W. Robbins Dutton, New York, 1962, Chapter 5.
23. Ibid., Chapter 3. Hourani, History of the Arab Peoples, p.198.
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