MEDIÆVAL GARDENS
gardens may possibly account for the comparative accuracy with which the early miniaturists painted such beasts as lions, bears, and leopards, which otherwise they might have had no chance of studying.
One of the greatest delights of the garden was the bower in which the warm months were passed. Here meals were taken, and merry pastimes enjoyed, as long as daylight lasted. Hither came tumblers and dancing-girls, and sometimes performing animals. A poor captive bear would be made to stumble over the rough roads for miles in order to go through its grotesque antics before some joyous company of dames and gallants. But spring and youth was the time to be gay, and nothing came amiss to these light-hearted folk.
The bower was also the "privy playing place," and all care was taken to make its leafy screen grow close and thick. Perhaps one of the most interesting references to a green arbour—interesting because of the romance which was the cause of its mention—is in a poem by King James I. of Scotland, telling of sad years in prison, which ended in love and liberty. James, whilst still a young man, was imprisoned in Windsor Castle, and writing to solace himself with something more tangible than the mere contemplation of his beloved one, and to while away time, describes the garden with "herbere green," which he saw through the barred window of his prison-house. Leaning his head against the
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