Alexander Neckam, an Augustinian monk living in the twelfth century, is the earliest English writer on fountains, statuary, and gardens. In his De Naturis Rerum, he describes the herbs, trees, and flowers growing in a noble garden, flanked by flowing water from statuary fountains.
Gardens and Fountains in the Dark Ages
In the tenth century, the darkest of the Dark Ages, a period of great industrial depression reached its lowest ebb in Europe. Monasticism, for the previous two centuries on the decline, almost ceased to exist, and horticulture, as early in the Christian era, practically became a lost art. Lush gardens, elegant statuary, and decorative water fountains were no longer to be found in good repair.
Gardens at the Time of the Norman Conquest
The Anglo-Saxon ways of living were greatly altered by the advent of the Normans in the latter half of the eleventh century. In architecture, as well as horticulture, the Normans excelled the Anglo-Saxons at the time of the Conquest. But, until the Normans had subdued the entire country, home life was an impossibility, and there was no occasion for domestic architecture or decoration.
Gardens in Post Norman England
The end of internal warfare in Norman England permitted the precincts of the castle to become less restricted without loss of security. At the close of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth century the connection between France and England was very intimate.
Garden Statues and Fountains in Monasteries
Monasteries with dramatic gardens, adorned with garden statues and water fountains, flourished throughout Europe in the first half of the first millennium, and along with cross, monks carried the plough.
Decorative Gardens and Garden Fountains of the Cistercians
The Cistercians, following in the footsteps of the Benedictines, did much to further the progress of horticulture and decorative gardens on the continent and in England. Their monasteries, lush with flowing water from large fountains and dramatic statuary, stood in contrast to those gardens as conspicuously bare of decoration as those of the Benedictines.