From the gardens of the wealthy Romans the taste for clipped trees and general formality of design was carried throughout the Empire. Doubtless the monks who carried the arts of gardening throughout the European continent took with them and put into practice a taste for Topiary. In their wall-encircled monastic gardens dense hedges would rise both for the provision of shelter and to afford additional seclusion, and in a modest way these would in all probability be embellished by verdant sculptures. But it was much later than this that Topiary commenced to be one of the chief features of garden design, for with the corruption of the ruling powers came the decline of the Roman Empire, and then followed the Dark Ages wherein the clash of arms, coupled with deep superstition, put gardening, as a pleasure, out of the question, so that except in some few cases it was only conducted at all because of the necessity of providing a meagre food supply. For long, long years war-like occupations were, either from choice or necessity, in the ascendant. But there presently came a time when peace again reigned and arts and commerce flourished; gardening revived, and in Italy where still remained many examples of the grandeur of Ancient Rome, it soon flourished in the establishments of the wealthy princes. Although Charlemagne revived the art of gardening in France in the eighth century, he was not the kind of man to care much for garden display; he rather introduced useful fruits and encouraged the cultivation of herbs and fruits wholly from an economic point of view. So we are compelled by the lack of historical information to pass on to much later times ere we can again take up the tale of Topiary. Loudon points out that the Roman style of gardening was lost in England when the Romans abandoned this country at the beginning of the fifth century, but he surmises that, following the revival of gardening in France by Charlemagne, William the Conqueror would probably re-introduce it at the end of the eleventh century. Some little progress was made in the reigns of Henry I. and Henry II., and it was the former who formed the Park at Woodstock (1123), probably the first of which there is any record. In accord with the prevailing taste, it contained a labyrinth, which appears to have chiefly constituted the Bower so intimately associated with the fate of Rosamund.