Turf seats in French Gardens of the middle ages (12th -16th centuries)

• Autores: Martine Paul
• Localización: Studies in the history of gardens and designed landscape, ISSN 1460-1176, Vol. 5, Nº 1, 1985, págs. 3-14
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • Among the more curious features of medieval French gardens to beguile the student is the siège de gazon or turf seat. Exactly at what period these garden seats came into use in France remains impossible to say. Years of research on medieval gardens have yielded no documentary evidence of such use prior to the thirteenth century. The philosopher Albert the Great devoted a few lines to garden seats in his De Vegetabilibus, and Pietro de Crescenzi, a century later, did likewise. Furthermore, historical documents record the presence of such seats in a number of private gardens: those of the Countess Mahaut of Artois, ofthe Archbishop ofRouen, and of the Dukes ofBurgundy. As for literary works about gardens, they remain strangely but consistently silent on the subject. Iconographical sources, though comparatively abundant, date for the most part from the fourteenth and the fifteenth centuries only.