As the arts and arms of the Romans went together, no doubt a very wide circulation of all that was known of gardening in Italy, was transferred thence. Their writers on rural affairs preferred _agri_ to _horti_culture; but their sound knowledge of the former shews no inconsiderable share of acquaintance with the principles of the latter; and as their practice, as well as the seeds of their products, would be introduced wherever the climate permitted, it is more than probable they [p265] laid the foundation of British gardening. The rules and examples left by them, were probably continued, with occasional accessions to the stock both of practice and production, throughout the Heptarchy, the domination of the Saxons, Danes, and Normans: but these troublous times were not favourable to the prosecution of the arts of peace; and it is not likely much advancement in the art took place until the Norman power was fully established; and even then their castellated mansions precluded any extensive adaptation of garden, from the necessity of forming the glacis, for the greater security of the baronial hall: and though it is probable that, at this time, not a dwelling, from the regal palace to the cottage, but had a garden of some size or other, yet the best practice was confined to the monasteries, and other religious corporations of those days, all over Christendom. Their education and leisure, their foreign intercourse, their interest in the tithes, and their love of superior vegetables and condiments, on the many days they were restricted from indulging in the consumption of animal food, all contributed to incline the monks to prosecute gardening on the most approved plans. Thus, Italy, Spain, and Germany became famous for their superior culinary vegetables, as France was for improved fruits; indeed, when war depopulated or devastated a country, and when the gardens of the château became a sacrifice to offensive or defensive operations, and when the potageries of the hamlets were trodden under foot and destroyed by a licentious soldiery, the gardens of the religious houses were often spared, and, consequently, many roots and fruits found there an asylum, which was denied them in less privileged places. In looking over the lists of plants cultivated in those days, we find the names of a great majority of the common sorts now in use, as well culinary, as for the table or the press, with a great addition of physical plants, it being then a prevalent supposition that remedies for all the ailments of the human frame were existent in the vegetable kingdom, if they could be detected; the cultivation and gathering of simples, therefore, was a business which employed many heads and many hands: even the Corinthian pillars of the noble profession of physic were not entirely free from that malaria, which was generated in the fumes of the herbalist’s shop! [p266]