Properly I should here display pictorially the series of which I speak. It would certainly be the quickest way of explaining the matter. But as this is out of the question for many reasons, and as the present little guide aims rather at showing the way than marching through it, the reader must be content to take its advice about where to look for examples which it cannot reproduce.

Regarding the letter L as an index of time and style, first we may take the Irish L of the Book of Kells on p. 17, pt. 1, of Miss Stokes' Early Christian Art in Ireland. Note first the form of the letter, then the way it is filled up with ornament. Compare this, which dates from the seventh century, with a similar L in the Ada-Codex in the Town Library at Trves, No. 22. A black and white copy of this is given in taf. 6 of Lamprecht Initial Ornamentik. This carries up the work to the second half of the eighth century. Next, say the L in the Town Archives at Cologne, No. 147. This belongs to the second half of the ninth century. The chief departure here is towards the knotted band work which figures so largely afterwards both in German and Italian book ornament, the form is still unchanged. But with the tenth century comes change of form as well as of mode of filling, as for example taf. 19 of Lamprecht, in which there is a complete alteration of treatment. The student may take for similar comparison also the I of "In principio" of St. John's Gospel, and the B of the first psalm in the Psalter, and carry the comparison on to the end of the fourteenth century, by referring to the MSS. in the British Museum and other public libraries, or in the numerous illustrated works to be found in those collections.



CHAPTER X

FIRST ENGLISH STYLES

Transition from Iona to Lindisfarne—Influence of Frankish art—The "Opus Anglicum"—The Winchester school and its characteristics—Whence obtained—Method of painting—Examples—Where found and described.

The succession of the school of Iona shows us in the first examples of English illumination the type exemplified in the Book of Kells, modified, but not very much, by its transference to Lindisfarne.

Whatever doubt may be felt as to the influence of Byzantine or Romanesque models on pure Irish work, such as the Book of Kells, there can be none as regards the Lindisfarne Gospels. In the first place we have gold both in the lettering and ornament. This MS., known also as the Durham Book (Brit. Mus., Nero D. iv.), was the work of Abbat Eadfrith, of Lindisfarne. It has been often described, as it is really a most precious example of eighth-century art in this country. No other MS. of its time is to be found in any continental scriptorium to be compared with it. It is not a collection of clumsy inartistic attempts at ornamental writing, but high-class, effective work, which should be seen and studied by every student of illumination.

From its style of execution, its details of portraiture, and other features, it may be looked on as one of the earliest links between the two extremes of Oriental and Occidental Art.

Another MS. in the British Museum (Vesp. A. 1), which combines the Roman method of painting as in the Vergils with the penwork of these Anglo-Celtic Gospel-books, may also repay careful examination.

It is very possible that the celebrated scriptoria of York and Jarrow may have been furnished with both MSS. and copyists from Rome, yet there can be little doubt that the intercourse with Durham would be quite as active. Nor is it less probable that similar intercourse would keep them en rapport with Oxford, St. Alban's, Westminster, Glastonbury, and other scriptoria, so that in the eighth century England stood with respect to art second to no other country in the Christian world.

During the ninth century active intercourse with the Frankish Empire enriched English churches and religious houses, especially Winchester, with examples of Byzantine and Roman models, which Charlemagne had introduced into his own palatine schools. From such secondary models as the Sacramentaries and Evangeliaries executed at Tours, Soissons, Metz, and other busy centres of production, English illuminators succeeded in forming a distinctive style of their own. In the French or, rather, Frankish MSS., while the richness of the gold and the beauty and delicacy of the colouring are in themselves most charming, and while certain features may in general be recognised as no doubt suggestive there is nothing which quite predicts the remarkable treatment which characterises the English work. "Opus Anglicum" was its distinctive title. The term, indeed, was applied to all English artistic productions more or less—embroidery among the rest. The women of England, says William of Poitiers, were famous for their needlework, the men excelled in metal-work and jewellery. But it was the illuminated Service Books that have perpetuated the term.

From the Lindisfarne Gospels to the Winchester Benedictionals is a far cry—but Art is long and time is fleeting, hence many pages of intervening description must be omitted. We may, however, refer the reader to Westwood's Palographia Sacra Pictoria, the Palographical Society's publications, and other works, for enlightenment on this period. On the Rouen and Devonshire Benedictionals much interesting information may be found in vol. 24 of the Archologia and in the recent volume of the Bradshaw Society concerning them.

The work is peculiar; and if we consider the treatment of foliage apart from the colour, we cannot but notice its similarity to the ivory carving observable in the consular diptychs. Ivory carving was then a popular artistic occupation. The foliage is graceful, the composition well-balanced, and the colour mostly bright body colour applied in the Greek manner. The fault of the heads is that they are too small for the figure, and of the draperies that the folds are overdone too much fluttering detail. The gilding differs from the Byzantine in not being laid on the vellum in the form of burnished leaf, but painted on like the colours, not only in the figures but in the framework and ornaments.

The British Museum contains several characteristic examples, but, as has been said, the very finest are those at Rouen and in the library of the Duke of Devonshire.

Perhaps no genuine example exists earlier than the Golden Charter of King Edgar of true Winchester illumination, executed forty years after the accession of Athelstan, whose Coronation Book (Brit. Mus., Tib. A. 2) is most probably not English at all, but Carolingian of the finest type. Many other scriptoria in England in the tenth century were equally busy with Winchester, but none could vie with the royal city in the production of illuminated books.



CHAPTER XI

CAROLINGIAN ILLUMINATION

Why so-called—Works to be consulted—The Library of St. Gall—Rise and progress of Carolingian art—Account of various MSS.—Features of the style—Gospels of St. Sernin—The Ada-Codex—Centres of production—Other splendid examples—The Alcuin Bible—The Gospel of St. Mdard of Soissons.

Once more crossing the Channel let us now inquire what has been doing among the Franks since the Gellone Sacramentary, especially in the schools instituted by the Emperor Charles the Great. Materials for this inquiry are most abundant. One of the more important works on the subject is the lucid monograph of Dr. Rahn, of Zurich, on the Golden Psalter of Folchard at St. Gall, which deals more or less with the whole question of Carolingian art, while M. Lop. Delisle's brochure on the Evangeliary of St. Vaast of Arras gives us a copious account of the Franco-Saxon branch of it. Apart, however, from these sources of information, we have not a few original MSS. still extant, which, of course, more vividly speak for themselves, and only require pointing out to the student.

The clearest method of study being to take things in the order of their creation, so in order to understand the "character of savage grandeur and nave originality" which has been attributed to this style, it will be best to take up these MSS. chronologically. At the same time, if anyone merely wishes to know what the style is like at its best, Dr. Rahn must be his guide, as the Golden Psalter which he has selected for study is as splendid an example as perhaps may be found in the whole career of the art. We have noticed how the Irish missionary-artists carried their work to their continental settlements, how they planted their schools in Burgundy, Switzerland, and Lombardy. Of all their depositories, however, numerous as they are elsewhere, none is richer in the relics of their work than the celebrated abbey which takes its name of St. Gall from that disciple of St. Columbanus, who in 614 founded his little cell beside the Steinach, about nine miles south of the Lake of Constance. Under Charles Martel the cell had become a monastery, which he endowed as a Benedictine abbey. In 830 was founded its magnificent library of MSS. The library still exists, and at the present moment gives shelf-room to 1,800 MSS. and more than 41,700 printed books. Besides this, another, called the Town Library, founded in the sixteenth century, and containing 500 MSS. and 60,400 printed books, gives this upland, busy, modern manufacturing Swiss town no mean importance as a centre of literary culture. Physically it is probably the highest town in Europe, its street-level being very nearly 2,200 feet above that of the sea. Its libraries and museums are rich storehouses of medival treasures. The architect raves over its monastic buildings; the scholar and palographer gloat over its books and MSS. In the libraries of St. Gall are some of the masterpieces of Irish Saxon, and Carolingian art, and its great Benedictine abbey under Grimald from 841, i.e. during the later Carolingian period, possessed one of the most active scriptoria in Europe. To begin with the beginning, however, we must leave St. Gall, and, passing by some less important MSS., go back to the year 781 and the city of Toulouse. In that year, and in the Abbey of St. Sernin (Saturninus) in that city, was finished a wonderful and truly splendid manuscript of the Gospels as a present to the Emperor and his wife Hildegardis. This is our first example. It now is to be seen in the National Library, Paris (Nouv. acqu. Lat. 1203).

Next comes the Evangeliary of Abbat Angilbert of Centula (now St. Riquier), near Abbeville, Charlemagne's son-in-law. This MS., executed about the year 793, is still preserved in the Town Library of Abbeville. In the same rank, but somewhat finer in execution, comes a third Evangeliary, that of St. Mdard of Soissons, now in the National Library, Paris (No. 8850, Lat.).

In these three MSS., reproductions from which are to be found in various modern works on art, the writing and ornamentation are the parts into which the artist puts his best work, not the figure drawing. Although in the St. Sernin MS. there is, in the Christ-figure, a distinct attempt at portraiture quite different from the coils and pen-flourishes which make up the Gospel-figures in the Irish and Merovingian MSS. Here the inspiration is clearly Greek, not Irish. The figure is draped in green and violet—seated on an embroidered cushion before a low castellated wall. The hair is light, and the chin beardless. The design shows a decided likeness to the consular ivory diptychs, and the painting follows the Eastern methods. In the details of ornament only are Irish features. Thus we trace in this MS. the sources of Carolingian art. The MS. being dated, is important as affording a means of comparison with other undated work. It was presented to St. Sernin on the occasion of the visit of the Emperor and Empress with their son, the amiable Louis "le Debonaire,"[14] just after the latter had been made King of Aquitaine. Godeschalk, the writer of it, on the last two leaves tells us that it took him seven years to accomplish. It is written throughout in gold and silver letters on purple vellum, and is, moreover, ornamented with borders, pictures, portraits, and panellings. At first it was kept in a cumdach of silver, set with precious stones, but that has disappeared.

[14] Mod. Fr. "Debonnaire."

The Golden Gospels of St. Mdard, like the Centula MS., are similar, but betoken an advance in both taste and execution. The figures are still rude and deformed, but the artist shows a laudable desire, an ambition, in fact, to imitate the work of better artists than himself. Nevertheless, the calligraphy and borderwork are the best parts of his performance. In this MS. the use of silver betrays a tendency to prodigality. In design, the influence of the artists who built the new church of San Vitale at Ravenna, a church which became the model for the Abbey of St. Mdard itself, is quite manifest, yet perhaps need not be traced further than Soissons or Pavia. In certain of the illustrations, as, for instance, the "Fountain of Life," there is at once a likeness and a variation as compared with the same symbol in the Evangeliary of St. Sernin. They are both too intricate to describe, but of both it may be said that they show an intimate acquaintance with early Christian symbolism. The ivory carving and architecture of Ravenna have evidently been known to the director of these frames and backgrounds. In the year which saw the completion of Godeschalk's Gospels, Alcuin was at Parma, but when the St. Mdard's Gospels were written he was Abbot of St. Martin's at Tours. It was the presence of Alcuin at the Court of Charlemagne that accounts for the prevalence of the Saxon character in the new and beautiful handwriting we now call Carolingian. It was the presence of Paul Warnefrid that accounts for much of the classic and most of the Lombardic features, both of the writing and the illumination. Many other scholars assisted these two in the various centres in which Alcuin established branches of the palatine schools. The intercourse with Italy and England was constant, and led to the frequent interchange of books, and community of methods and models. Another fine MS. of the same period (c. 780) is the Golden Ada-Codex of St. Mesmin or Maximin, of Trves. In 1794 this MS. was taken from Trves to Mainz; in 1815 it was transferred to Aix-la-Chapelle, and is now back again at Trves. The externals of the Ada-Codex are very costly, its binding being a late Gothic pendant to the cover of the Echternach Evangeliary at Gotha. In the centre of the fore-cover there is a magnificent topaz,[15] with several imperial figures. Inside, the work is a handsome example of the early Carolingian.[16] It contains the four Gospels written by order of the "Mother and Lady Ada," sister of Charles the Great, Abbess of St. Mesmin. Next we have in the British Museum another grand example of the style as modified by English or Saxon influence. Also the Zurich Bible, of the same date, executed at Tours—and the Bamberg Bible, said to be a copy of the Alcuin Bible of the same school. Then follow the Drogo Sacramentary, presented by the Emperor to his natural son Drogo, Archbishop of Metz (826-855), perhaps illuminated at Metz, but of the same school as those above mentioned.

[15] Or sardonyx (Lamprecht says topaz.)

[16] A photograph of the cover is sold by F. Linz of Trves.

In our own National Library, again, we have the Athelstan Gospels (Harl. 2788), also in all probability executed at Metz. At Paris (Nat. Lib., Theol. Lat. 266) is the Evangeliary of Lothaire—a most beautiful example of gold-writing and ornament. So we might enumerate a score of splendid MSS., and classify them into their various minor schools. But such is not our object. All we want here is a general but clear idea of the style as a whole.

To characterise it broadly by the names of its most important elements we should call it a Lombard-Saxon style—the interlacing bands and knots and other minor features and the main character of the writing being of Saxon origin, the classical foliages and manner of painting the figures and certain ideas of design Lombardic, strengthened by direct contact with the sources of the latter style. Whatever variations there may be, they can generally be accounted for according to locality and centre of production. We have instanced a few examples of the earlier time as showing the principal features of the style. Under the Emperor Charles the Great's grandson, Charles the Bald, Carolingian illumination reached its highest point of excellence, and the MSS. executed for him or his contemporaries accordingly give a correct idea of what Carolingian illuminators considered as good work. The chief centres were still Tours and Metz—the latter a branch of the former, but gradually developing distinct features of its own; and among the productions of these schools there still remain precious—we might say priceless—examples, such as the Vivien Bible of the Paris Library, so-called because presented by Count Vivien, Abbat of St. Martin's of Tours, to Charles the Bald in 850.[17] It contains a fine picture of the presentation with beardless figures. It has also a number of exceedingly splendid initials showing strong Byzantine influence—capitals of columns of classic origin and traces of Merovingian in letter forms and ornamental details. It is like the Evangeliary of Lothaire, already mentioned, a most sumptuous example rich in silver and gold—the latter having a grand portrait of Lothaire seated on his throne. Both MSS. are in the National Library at Paris, the Vivien, No. 1 (Theol. Lat.), the Lothaire, No. 266. But the one example to which we would call the reader's attention, though among the earlier productions of the period, as not only most readily accessible, but most precious to the English student, is the celebrated Alcuin Bible in the British Museum (Add. MS. 10546). This venerable MS. is a copy of the Vulgate revised by Alcuin himself, and said to be exactly similar to the one at Bamberg. Biblical revision was perhaps the most important of his many literary occupations, and this volume is reasonably believed to be the actual copy prepared for presentation to Charlemagne under the reviser's own superintendence, possibly, in part at least, the work of his own hand. It is a large folio, finely written in a neat minuscule, mainly Saxon hand, with uncial initials in two columns. The miniatures, including their architectural details, are in the Roman manner, the ornaments partly Byzantine, partly Celtic. The great similarity of design between different manuscripts is strikingly exemplified by a comparison of three borders from (a) the Evangeliary of St. Vaast of Arras, fol. 28 v. (see Delisle); (b) the Evangel. in National Library, Paris, anc. fds. Lat. 257 (see Louandre), and Evangeliary No. 309 Bibl. de Cambrai (see Durieux).

[17] Plate in t. 1 of Louandre.

Indeed, comparisons of this kind are very instructive frequently as suggestive of provenance, as each working centre would have its own set of models and designs. Of course, comparison of the MSS. themselves is out of the question, but the comparisons can often be effected by the student's having Louandre, Durieux, Fleury, Labarte, etc., by his side during the examination of any given period. The limits of our little book forbid our speaking of other examples of this splendid style, but we cannot conclude without noticing that in the opinion of M. Ferdinand Denis, the Golden Gospels of St. Mdard of Soissons is the most beautiful Carolingian MSS. extant.



CHAPTER XII

MONASTIC ILLUMINATION

Introductory—Monasteries and their work from the sixth to the ninth century—The claustral schools—Alcuin—Warnefrid and Theodulf—Clerics and monastics—The Golden Age of monasticism—The Order of St. Benedict—Cistercian houses—Other Orders—Progress of writing in Carolingian times—Division of labour.

In the sixth century the monasteries, such as they were, necessarily kept themselves very quiet and unobtrusive. They were situated usually in out-of-the-way corners, solitudes apart from civilisation, or, at least, apart from the busy haunts of men. In the eighth century there is a marked difference. The Capitular of Aix-la-Chapelle, of 789, required that minor schools should be attached to all monasteries and cathedral churches without exception, and that children of all ranks, both noble and servile, should be received into them. Also that the larger monasteries should open major schools in which the seven sciences of mathematics, astronomy, arithmetic, music, rhetoric, dialectics, and geography, were to be taught—and this in two ways. There were to be two sorts of schools—interior or claustral, intended for monastics only, and exterior or canonical, intended for secular students. These schools were under separate scholastics or masters, and lay students were received in the exterior schools as freely and fully as in the public schools of the present time. Mabillon[18] gives a list of some twenty-seven monastic and cathedral schools, by no means confined to great or wealthy cities, but well distributed throughout the Empire.

[18] Prfat. in iv. Scul. 184.

In the time of Charlemagne those most in repute were Tours, St. Gall, Fulda, Reims, and Hirsfeld.

We have given the names of Alcuin and Paul Warnefrid as the chief promoters of the Carolingian Revival, but we should not omit that of Theodulf, of Orleans, the indefatigable school inspector of the time. He it was who assisted the artistic side of the movement by his ingenious contrivances as a writer and illustrator of school books. Undoubtedly it was from his suggestions that we so often find in medival scientific treatises of the driest kind those graphic and wonderful tabulations and edifices, labelled and turreted, which make Aristotle, Priscian, and Marcianus Capella, not only comprehensible, but attractive. Theodulf composed in simple and easy Latin verse—somewhat after the style of the Propria qu maribus our own childhood—the description of a supposed tree of science, which he had drawn and painted, on the trunk and branches of which were the figures and names of the seven liberal arts. At the foot sat Grammar—the basis of all learning—holding on her hand a lengthy rod (ominous for the tender student). On the right Rhetoric stretched forth her hand. On the left was Dialectic. Philosophy sat on the summit; the rest being disposed according to their relative importance. The whole was explained in the Carmina de septem artibus, in which the bishop, who was one of the famous poets of the age, strove in flowery language to render these dry-as-dust studies acceptable to the youthful understanding. Theodulf was a great scholar, and assisted Alcuin in the revision of the Bible, one copy of which he himself had written whilst still Abbat of Fleury, about 790. At the beginning of this Bible is a poem in golden letters on purple, and a preface in prose, also in golden letters, giving a synopsis of the several books. The text differs somewhat from the Alcuin Bible, as it is that of Jerome before Alcuin's revision. This MS. is now at Paris. Another Bible executed to the order of Theodulf is now in the Town Library at Puy.

It seems incredible, after the efforts made by Charlemagne and his ministers for the maintenance of learning and the arts, that there should ever be any risk of a return to barbarism, but it is a fact that the dissolution of the Empire proved in certain localities the suspension of prosperity. Fortunately the monastics—especially the Benedictines—and the canons of the cathedrals still kept up the practice of copying books; but almost all the South of France, Languedoc, and Provence, always conservative, remained more or less illiterate. They produced poets and jongleurs, but seldom artists or scholars. And even in the North, where the capitular schools were most flourishing—as Paris, Reims, and Chartres—the general tendency was towards relapse. In High Germany it was even worse. In spite of all efforts of the clergy by the extension of secular schools, the laity preferred the excitement of chase and camp to the quiet humdrum of the schoolroom. Religion seemed to be regarded rather as a profession than a principle, quite right in its place, i.e. the Church and the monastery, but unsuited for active life. The wealthy land-owners, therefore, did not cease to endow religious houses or to build churches, but they left book-learning to the clerics. Accordingly the clerics and the monastics flourished exceedingly.

From the beginning of the tenth century to the beginning of the thirteenth was the Golden Age of monasticism. The Order of St. Benedict scattered its foundations thickly over France and Western Germany, while its reformed colonies of Cluny, Citeaux, Clairvaux, and the Chartreuse again spread their settlements in all directions. Thus we find Cluny established in 910, Grammont in 1076, the Chartreuse in 1080, Citeaux in 1098, Savigny in 1105, Tiron in 1109, Austin Canons in 1038, Premonstrants in 1120, Crutched Friars in 1169. In England, from 1100, scarcely a year passed by without the establishment of some fresh foundation. During the thirty-five years of the reign of Henry I. more than 150 religious houses were founded. And even during the disastrous reign of Stephen, in less than twenty years, no fewer than 100 houses of various Orders were established. The twelfth century in England was especially the age of monasteries.

It is true that not very much in the way of original literature, except theological treatises, can be assigned to the three centuries referred to, but the unwearied labours of the copyist and illuminator did much to preserve the works which previous centuries had created. Of course, in so long a period changes were many and great. So great, indeed, that between a MS. of 850 and another of 1200 scarcely is there a common feature.

From 850 to 1000 in France the Carolingian minuscule, from the first so clear and beautiful, remained with scarce a stroke of alteration. But immediately after the opening of the eleventh century a series of rapid changes set in, and by the beginning of the twelfth a new hand, perfectly clear and regular, but quite different from the Carolingian, had been formed, which lasted until it was superseded by the Gothic, while a system of contractions adopted because of the scarcity of parchment creates a fresh need for study apart from the peculiarities of personal habits. Side by side, too, with this there grows up a non-professional hand—the so-called cursive or running hand of the ordinary writer—in many cases, especially in deeds and other brief compositions, all but utterly illegible, except to the professional palographer. Occasionally these autographs are of the highest importance and intensely interesting, as, for instance, when in an English MS. we come Across a note in the handwriting of Ordericus (Vitalis) or Matthew Paris.

From 900 to 1200 the vast majority of MSS., illuminated and otherwise, were the work of monastics. Every house of any note had its room set apart for writing. The larger monasteries sometimes utilised the cloisters of the churches themselves, in recesses of which they had desks or tables placed for the copyist. Usually, however, they had a large common room called the scriptorium, where either the copyist and illuminator worked separately and each on his own account, or where a number of copyists awaited with pen and parchment the dictation by one of the fraternity of some work of which a number of copies had to be made. "No admittance except on business" was the rule of this chamber. There, under the direction of the armarius, the expert writers did their work.

Sometimes a single monk executed the book from first to last by himself. He prepared the vellum, ruled it with the fine metal point, copied the text, painted the illuminations, put on the gilding, and even added the binding. Generally, however, the labour was divided—one monk scraped and polished the parchment; another ruled it; another wrote the text, leaving spaces for initials and miniatures; another put in the initials and did the gilding and flourishing with borders, etc.; and another painted the miniatures. This in the monasteries was done in the case of large and important MSS., and afterwards, when illuminating became a lay-craft, subdivision of labour was the common practice. Binding was done in a special apartment, and by one specially skilled therein.

The scriptorium was looked upon as a sort of sacred place, and the work of copying often considered as a labour of piety and love—entered upon with devout prayer, and solemnly blessed by the superior, especially in cases where the books to be written were Bibles, or connected with the services of the house, the Lives of the Saints, or Treatises on Theology.

Very frivolous or absurd indeed are sometimes the inducements to copyists to do gratuitous work of this kind, such as that every letter transcribed paid for one sin of the copyist, and it is said that a certain monk—a heavy sinner—only owed his salvation to the fact that the number of letters in a Bible which he copied exceeded by a single unit the sum total of his sins.



CHAPTER XIII

MONASTIC ILLUMINATION—continued

The copyists—Gratuitous labour—Last words of copyists—Disputes between Cluny and Citeaux—The Abbey of Cluny: its grandeur and influences—Use of gold and purple vellum—The more influential abbeys and their work in France, Germany, and the Netherlands.

Of course, only really expert calligraphers were employed on great and important works. In the monastery all such labour was gratuitous, that is, the copyist received no pecuniary remuneration, only his food and lodging. Yet even this had to be provided for. Hence the frequent requests for donations from the laity.

To give a volume to a monastery did not always mean actually to present the book, but to stand the expense of its production in the monastery itself. In the case of specially distinguished penmen, their entertainment in a monastery was sometimes an expensive business. It was only in later times, however, when lay-artists were invited to reside in the monastery to do their work that money was paid for their services. Very often we find notices at the end of volumes that "So-and-so" had ordered the book to be written and illuminated at his expense, and an invocation for the gratitude of the reader and remembrance in his prayers is added, sometimes with the date to the very hour when the book was finished.

The copyist's last words after his task was completed are often very full of weariness—sometimes pious, sometimes hankering after fleshly lusts, occasionally quite too dreadful to repeat. "May Christ recompense for ever him who caused this book to be written." At the end of a Life of St. Sebastian: "Illustrious martyr, remember the monk Gondacus who in this slender volume has included the story of thy glorious miracles. May thy merits assist me to penetrate the heavenly kingdom; and may thy holy prayers aid me as they have aided so many others who have owed to them the ineffable enjoyments both of body and soul." Wailly quotes the following: "Dextram scriptoris benedicat mater honoris" ("May the mother of honour bless the writer's right hand"). A very common ending is "Qui scripsit scribat semper cum Domino vivat" ("He who wrote, let him write; may he ever live with the Lord"). Another: "Explicit expliceat. Bibere scriptor eat" ("It is finished. Let it be finished, and let the writer go out for a drink"). Another ending is "Vinum scriptori reddatur de meliori" ("Let wine of the best be given to the writer"). And again: "Vinum reddatur scriptori, non teneatur" ("Let wine be given to the writer; let it not be withheld"). Here is the recompense wished for by a French monk: "Detur pro pen scriptori pulcra puella" ("Let a pretty girl be given to the writer for his pains," or "as a penance") The monks enjoyed puns, as "bibere," a common pun on "vivere." One writer groans thus: "Scribere qui nescit, nullum putat esse laborem" ("Whoso knows not how to write, thinks it is no trouble").

As time goes on, after the tenth century, it is noticeable that the more beautiful a manuscript becomes in its writing the less accurate becomes its Latinity. And so the monks who once were noted for learning, gradually lose their grip on Latin. The manuscripts executed in Benedictine abbeys became inaccurate—almost illiterate. Faults of ignorance of words; misrendering of proper names; blundering in the inept introduction of marginal notes and confounding such notes with the text, showing that the heart of the copyist was not in his work nor his head capable of performing it. His hand is simply a machine, which when it goes wrong does so without remorse and without shame. So in the greater houses, men were appointed whose sole business was to supervise the copyists—in fact, to supply the brains, while the scribe furnished the manipulation of the pen. Even they, however, did not always succeed to perfection, as very few of them were too well furnished with scholarship. There were not many Alcuins or Theodulfs in the twelfth century. What they did usually keep free from serious error were the books used in their own services. It was the aim, particularly among the Cistercian houses, to have their liturgical texts absolutely without fault. In respect of illumination, there was a great quarrel between the Abbey of Citeaux and that of Cluny. The great Abbey of Clugny (or Cluny) in ancient Burgundy was founded in 910, and in the course of a century or obtained a degree of splendour, influence, and prosperity unrivalled by any other medival foundation. It possessed enormous wealth and covered Western Europe with its affiliated settlements. Under Peter the Venerable, when the controversy began, it was the chief monastic centre of the Christian world. The words of Pope Urban II., when addressing the community, were: "Ye are the light of the world."

The grand Basilica at Cluny was completed in 1131, and, until the erection of St. Peter's at Rome, was the largest church in Christendom, and even then was only ten feet shorter than the Roman edifice. The building is a masterpiece of architectural beauty and massiveness, being with its narthex added by Abbat Roland de Hainaut, no less in length than 555 feet. The splendour of the church, its gorgeous tombs and mausoleums, its huge coronals for lights of brass, silver, and gold—the grand candelabrum before the altar, with its settings of crystal and beryl—the mural painting of the cupola, and the general luxury and magnificence of the whole constituted an unpardonable sin in the eyes of the stern and self-denying Cistercians. Hence arose long disputes between the abbats of the two houses about tithes and other matters. Among the other matters were included questions of candlesticks and bindings and gildings of books. The two houses were long at variance on the right definition of luxury in living, and this variance may to this day be observed in their separate and distinct styles, both of architecture and the ornamentation of books. The use of gold was still continued in the older Benedictine abbeys, but was long forbidden in the Cistercian, almost all the ornament of the latter being confined to pen-drawing and the use of coloured inks. The employment of gold for the text of manuscripts so common in the ninth century became rare in the eleventh. Only here and there do we hear of such volumes. Where the gold lettering still lingers, it is confined to the first page or two, and the same may be said of the purple vellum. A certain monk, Admar, who died at Jerusalem in 1034, wrote a Life of St. Martial of Limoges entirely in letters of gold; but it was quite an exceptional volume. Another example occurs in an Evangeliary, which was probably a copy of a ninth-century model, as at first glance it might be assigned to that age, but on closer examination it is found that in one of the borders is a medallion bearing the name of the Emperor Otho, showing that it cannot be later than the latter part of the tenth century. It is now in the National Library at Paris.

Before speaking of Othonian illumination it may be well to refer to that of the Netherlands in these earlier centuries.

The most ancient writings known in this district were charters and other documents, and the pious effusion of the occupants of the monasteries, such as St. Amand, Lobbes, Stavelot, etc.

It was the revival of art and literature under Charlemagne that was the beginning of artistic calligraphy, then followed the production of books outside the monasteries, classical authors, chronicles, and mirrors of various sciences. In the eleventh century we find monastic books and others of which the ornamentation is sometimes even splendid, such as Psalters, Evangeliaries, Bibles, and Missals, glowing with gold and colours. Already the Abbeys of Stavelot and Lige were high-class centres of production. St. Martin's of Tournay had a famous scriptorium also, noted for the beauty of its writing and its grand initial letters. Immediately following St. Martin's, the Abbeys of Gembloux, St. Bavon at Ghent, and others, produced or acquired MSS. of the most sumptuous kind, and before the thirteenth century the Netherlands had established quite a distinguished reputation.

In a later chapter we shall deal with the development of its remarkable schools, whose work eventually took rank, not only among the most artistic, but the most prolific in Europe.



CHAPTER XIV

OTHONIAN ILLUMINATION

Departure from Carolingian—Bird and serpent—Common use of dracontine forms in letter-ornament—Influence of metal-work on the forms of scroll-ornament—The vine-stem and its developments—Introduction of Greek taste and fashion into Germany—Cistercian illumination—The Othonian period—Influence of women as patronesses and practitioners—German princesses—The Empress Adelheid of Burgundy—The Empress Theophano—Henry II. and the Empress Cunegunda—Bamberg—Examples of Othonian art.

Perhaps the first departure towards a new style arising out of the elements of Carolingian illumination is in the combination of the bird and serpent used for letter forms and continued into coils of vine-stem and foliage in combination with golden panelled frames or pilasters. The monsters thus produced seem to be a revival of the dracontine forms of the semi-barbarous Celtic and early Frankish arts. But the difference in elegance and refinement of drawing and beauty of colouring is very great indeed. Other animal forms are also made use of, nor is the human figure altogether absent. Sometimes entire letters are made up of the latter in various attitudes. Little scenes illustrative of the subject which the initial commences are often placed within it, as, for instance, in the B of the first psalm.[19]

[19] A characteristic Othonian Evangeliary of the eleventh century, executed at the Abbey of Stavelot, may be seen in the Royal Library at Brussels.



Many twelfth-century initials look like designs in metal-work placed on the panelled grounds of coloured enamels. But the rapid development of the vine-stem coils out of the stemless foliages of the Carolingian and Winchester styles is one of the wonders of the early German revival after the accession of the Emperor Otho I. A still greater improvement takes place after the marriage of his son Otho II. to the Princess Theophano, daughter of Romanus II., attributable, no doubt, to a fresh accession of artistic enthusiasm from the home of the new Empress. In point of elegance of design, beauty of curve, adaptation of every part to its share in the composition, nothing could be finer than the initial letters of the Othonian period of illumination. The year 963 introduced Greek fashions and Greek artists into Germany, the results of which are at once traceable in the increased splendour of monastic illumination in that country. The details of Greek ornament become the fillings of the frames and panels of the large initials.

The Cistercian illuminators, or rather calligraphers, while they constantly repudiate the golden splendour and monstrous follies of their rivals, absolutely excel in this same ornamental draughtsmanship. What, for example, could be finer than the pen-drawing of the great Arnstein Bible in the British Museum (Harl. 2800)? The ornament is mostly in a red ink, with flat-coloured blue, green, or yellow backgrounds, but it is not to be surpassed. No, the interlacements and coils, foliages and panels of the twelfth century are absolutely among the finest examples of ornamental lettering ever conceived. Illuminating seemed at this epoch to be more and more closely following the details of contemporary architecture, and so paving the way to the next great variety of the art, which is looked upon by some writers as the real beginning of medival illumination.

It must be admitted, however, that the excellence limits itself to the ornament. The human figure is wretchedly incorrect—even barbarous. It may be asked why is this? How is it that while the decorative portion of an illuminated book is beautiful in the highest degree, both in line and colour, and yet occasionally the artist seems not to have the remotest idea of the true shape of hands and feet or any part of the human body? Of course the usual explanation offered is that monastic education did not permit the study of the nude, and hence the monkish ignorance of figure drawing. But that is scarcely an excuse for the monstrous hands and feet and exaggerated facial expression of the miniatures. The Italian monk Angelico, in spite of his monastic limitations, succeeded in a most graceful rendering of the figure, and a charming delicacy in the forms of the hands. As in some instances the artist does reach a fair standard, it must be admitted that where he does not is owing to actual inability in himself and not in his system. The three emperors who give the name of Othonian to the period immediately succeeding the Carolingian ruled Germany, and had much to do with the ruling of Italy, from 936, when Otho I., called the Great, succeeded Henry the Fowler about five years before the death of Athelstan, whose sister Eadgyth[20] was Otho's first wife. His mother Mathilda was the patroness of the cloister-schools for women, working in them personally. She herself taught her servants and maids the art of reading. Her daughter Mathilda, the famous Abbess of Quedlinburg, in 969 persuaded the Abbat Wittikind of Corvey to write the History of the Saxon Kings, Henry her father, and Otho her brother (now in the Royal Library at Dresden). Hazecha, the Treasury-mistress of Quedlinburg, also employed the monks of Corvey, with whose beautiful initial drawing she was greatly pleased, to illuminate her own Life of St. Christopher. The beautiful but imperious Princess Hedwig, another of Otho's sisters, read Virgil with Ekkehard of St. Gall, and taught the child Burchard Greek, while Otho's niece Gerberga, Abbess of Gandersheim, was the instructress of the celebrated Hrosvita, "the oldest German poetess." And this reminds us that at this time the women-cloisters of Germany and the Netherlands were among the most active centres of learning and book-production. The great monument of feminine erudition and artistic skill, called the "Hortus Deliciarum," was of a somewhat later time, but other examples still exist, among them the beautiful Niedermnster Gospels of the Abbess Uota, now at Munich. A wood-cut by Albert Drer prefixed to the first edition of Hrosvita's works (Nrnberg, 1501) represents the nun Hrosvita kneeling before the Emperor and beside the Archbishop Wilhelm of Mainz presenting her book.[21] As to the literary labours of Hrosvita, this is not the place to discuss them. She is simply an incidental figure in our view of the brilliant Court of the Othos. A MS. of her works 500 years after her death was found among the dust of the cloister-library at St. Emmeram of Regensburg by Conrad Celtis, and, as we have seen, printed for the first time in 1501. Thus she stands out as an illustration of the fact often alluded to, of the importance of feminine foundations in the monastic scheme.

[20] The chroniclers are rather confused as to the name of this Princess.

[21] It is thought, however, by some that the figure behind is that of the Abbess—not the Archbishop. See Drer Soc. Portfolio for 1900.

Her picturesque story of the romantic adventures of Adelheid of Burgundy, her marriage in 947 to King Lothaire of Italy, her widowhood and perils, her misfortunes and eventual marriage to the Emperor Otho, reads more like a chapter from the Morte d'Arthur or the Arabian Nights than a veracious history of real people. The Empress Adelheid was, indeed, a remarkable woman, and the nun of Gandersheim is full of her praises. In her younger days she had been a zealous patron and protectress of the Abbey of Cluny, which stood on her native land of Burgundy, and her sympathies remained always with the religious houses. In this respect, indeed, she was a worthy successor of the pious Mathilda and her daughters. She died in her seventy-first year in her Abbey of Selz in Elsass, leaving a memory rich in benefits to the monastics, especially those of Cluny, and venerated as the patroness of many an illuminated volume of poems or theology, not to mention the liturgical books executed at her expense for use in her various foundations. The tenth century seems to have been an age of illustrious women. No sooner do we leave the story of Adelheid than we enter upon that of the young wife of Otho II., the Empress Theophano, daughter of the Greek Emperor, Romanus II. When little more than a child she was married to the son of Adelheid, he himself being in his twentieth year in the year 972, and in the city of Rome. The young Greek Princess who had been reared amid the luxury and splendour of the Eastern capital at once became the fashion—the manners of her Byzantine household became those of her Roman court, and were transplanted to her German home at Bamberg. Artists, limners, copyists, musicians, scholars, formed part of her retinue, and at once the German Court became the rival of those of England, Byzantium, Cordova, and Rome.

It was, indeed, a Renaissance, an awakening in literature, art, and social life. Nor did its glory fade until eclipsed by the succeeding rivalries of France and Italy. Theophano survived her husband, who died in 983, and proved herself a capable Regent during the infancy of her son Otho III. She, however, did not live to see his early death, nor indeed to see that of the aged Adelheid, who survived her eight years, and died in the same year (999) as Otho's aunt, Matilda, Abbess of Quedlinburg.

The death of Otho III. in 1002 did not affect materially the steady advance of monastic art. Bamberg, St. Gall, Corvey, Luxeuil, Bobbio, Monte Cassino continued their accustomed labours. Under the Capetian Kings the French foundations maintained the reputations they had won during the Carolingian times, while others were added from time to time throughout the Rhineland, Limousin, and the South of France, where the Romanesque or Byzantine tastes had not yet penetrated, and whose work therefore remained distinct from that of Italy and the German Empire.

Henry II. and the Empress Cunigunda made Bamberg the great centre of German art, and it is to Bamberg, St. Gall, Luxeuil, Monte Cassino, and Magdeburg that we have to look for the finest productions of the eleventh century. Among the earlier works of the Othonian period we may mention the famous Gospel-book executed for the minister of Otho II., Egbert, Archbishop of Trves, and known as the Codex Egberti. It was written in 980 at Reichenau on the Lake of Constance (or Bodensee, as it is locally known) by two monks, Kerald and Heribert, whose dwarfish figures appear beneath that of the archbishop on the frontispiece. It contains fifty-seven illuminations and several folios of violet parchment with golden ornaments and lettering. But its pictures are rather remarkable, mostly the figures are too short and the limbs and extremities badly drawn, but in some of the statelier personages the error is reversed and they are too tall—this seems to be owing to Greek influence, while the Byzantine taste shows itself in the treatment of the border-foliages. Beasts are unnatural—demons and swine are alike, both in form and colour (Pub. Lib., Trves).

An Evangeliary, formerly in the Cathedral Treasury at Bamberg, but now in the Royal Library at Munich (Cimel. 58), is a good example of the kind of work that at first glance appears to be actually Carolingian both in the figures, attitudes, and treatment of drapery, but which on closer examination proves to be really due to the reign of Otho II. In this MS. the beginning of St. Matthew contains four medallions—two of Henry I. (the Fowler), one of Otho I., his son, and another of his grandson, Otho II. (Nat. Lib., Paris, Lat. 8851).

A still more notable MS. is kept in the Munich Library (Cimel. 58), containing a two-paged picture of tributary cities bringing gifts to the Emperor Otho III. In the painting in this MS., notwithstanding the exaggerated solemnity of expression, the faces are well drawn and the features carefully modelled. The painting is in the Greek manner, as is also the general character of the draperies. The small, ill-drawn feet are by no means comparable with the heads.

The Imperial crown is square, like those of the Magi in the Bremen MS. now in the Library of Brussels, or like that of Baldwin as Emperor of Constantinople. In the several enthronements which occur among the Imperial miniatures at Munich there are important and significant differences which might not be noticed unless pointed out.

The changes in the shape and treatment of the orb, for instance, mean more than a mere advance in enrichment, or an improvement in artistic skill. The difference indicates a change in political usage. In the miniature of Charles it does not occur at all; in that of Otho III. it is a mere symbol; in that of Henry II. it is the actual emblem of sovereignty presented by the Pope to the Emperor, to be held by the latter in token of his investiture.

It was Selden's opinion that the orb, surmounted by the cross, never appears in western art until the time of Henry II. Thus it is here one of the many seemingly insignificant details which, in the miniature art of the Middle Ages, contribute to the elucidation of History.



CHAPTER XV

FRANCONIAN ILLUMINATION

The later Saxon schools—Bernward of Hildesheim—Tuotilo and Hartmut of St. Gallen—Portrait of Henry II. in MS. 40 at Munich—Netherlandish and other work compared—Alleged deterioration of work under the Franconian Emperors not true—Bad character of the eleventh century as to art—Example to the contrary.

The MS. just referred to (Munich, Cimel. 58) brings us most probably to the time of the third. Otho, but it is really with his father's marriage to the Princess Theophano that the great revival in the arts began, and the names of St. Bruno of Cologne and Augsburg, Gerbert, Bernward of Hildesheim, Tuotilo, Salomon, Hartmut, Folchard, and Sintramn of St. Gallen, are, as it were, points of light and centres of expanding circles of artistic skill. Bruno and Gerbert are too well known to need any further remark. Bernward of Hildesheim, made bishop there in 992 by Theophano, and tutor to her son Otho III., "excelled no less in the mechanical than in the liberal arts. He was an excellent penman, a good painter, and as a household manager was unequalled." Such is Tangmar's tribute to his pupil's character. He was, indeed, an enthusiast in painting, mosaic, and metal-work, and used to collect all the objects of art he could lay hands on, to form a museum or studio for the instruction of a class of art students and workmen. The collection was formed mainly out of the numerous presents brought to the young Emperor from foreign, and especially Greek and Oriental, princes, and contained many examples of beautiful metal-work and Greek illumination. His own Cathedral of Hildesheim was supplied with jewelled service-books, in part at least the work of his own hand. The chalices and incense-burners and the massive golden corona or candelabrum of the cathedral were also the productions of his own workshops. The mural paintings, too, were executed by himself. His handiwork, so lovingly described by his old schoolmaster Tangmar, may still be seen in Hildesheim, where visitors to that quaint old Saxon city are told that the bronze gates of the cathedral and the jewelled crucifix were placed there by the venerable bishop himself in 1015, while in the cathedral-close rises a column adorned with bronze reliefs from the Life of Christ, authoritatively declared to be the work of his own hands—let us say they came out of his own workshops, in the year 1022, nearly a thousand years ago. St. Bernward was canonised by Celestine III. in 1194. His sarcophagus is in the crypt of the Basilica of St. Michael at Hildesheim. Of Tuotilo, the pupil of Moengall (or Marcellus), it is said that he was physically almost a giant; just the man, says his biographer, that you would choose for a wrestler. He was a good speaker, had a fine musical voice, was a capital carver in wood, and an accomplished illuminator. Like most of the earlier monks of St. Gallen, he was a clever musician, equally skilful with the trumpet and the harp. And the charm about it all was that he was always cheerful and in excellent spirits, and in consequence a general favourite. Nor is this all. Besides being teacher of music in the upper school to the sons of the nobility, he was classical tutor, and could preach both in Latin and Greek. His chief accomplishments, however, were music and painting, and on these his reputation mainly rests. He composed songs, which, like an Irish bard, he sang to the harp—the popular instrument of this Irish foundation. Being thus multifariously accomplished (he was, by the way, an excellent boxer), he was much in request, and by the permission of his abbot travelled to distant places. One of his celebrated sculptures was the image of the Blessed Virgin for the cathedral at Metz, said to be quite a masterpiece. Nay, he was even a mathematician and astronomer, and constructed an astrolabe or orrery, which showed the courses of the planets.

This allusion to the astrolabe reminds us that it was Abbat Hartmut of St. Gallen, who was also an accomplished illuminator, who constructed a large map of the world—one of the extremely few that until that time the world had ever seen.

St. Gallen and its artists, however, must not be permitted to monopolise our attention too long. The reader must for the rest refer to Dr. Rahn and the writers whom he quotes. Sometimes it is said that the illuminations of the eleventh century are proofs of the rapid decline of art, and to demonstrate the fact that they are frankly hideous, some writers bring forward instances such as the miniatures of a Missal, especially a Crucifixion, said to be at Paris,[22] and a MS. at Berlin said to have been executed in the earlier days of the Franconian dynasty (1034-1125) containing another Crucifixion, which, though not quite so horrible as the one just referred to, is sufficiently bad. These miniatures are irredeemably barbaric and not in any sense typical of the age. Such examples, in fact, can be found in any age and in any country. Were they really representative of the best art of the time, there might be an excuse for their reproduction, but they are not, and therefore no reliance can be placed on their evidence.

[22] Le Livre, etc., par M.P. Louisy, Paris, 1886, 8, p. 79.

In the miniatures of MSS. executed for the Othos and Henrys of the early Saxon dynasty the worst they can be charged with, as compared with the periods before and after them, is slavish imitation. The portrait of Henry II. (Saint Henry, husband of Cunegunda) in MS. 40 at Munich is by no means barbaric—it is more Greek than anything else—but it is down to the smallest element of composition a direct imitation of the similar portrait of Charles the Bald in the Emmeram Gospels. It is not a copy, for there is a significant difference in the attitudes of the emperors. Henry holds a sceptre in his right hand and an orb in his left, like Otho III. in the miniature already described, whereas Charles is empty handed. Then both on the Emperor's head and on the smaller figures the crowns are different—the panelling of the Imperial canopy is different, and, of course, there is a different inscription. Lastly, it may be said that some of the differences are improvements. Another change is characteristic—Charles was beardless, Henry has a pointed beard.

It is true this is an example belonging to the very brightest years of the Othonian revival. But to pass over other Saxon MSS., there are extant examples from Evroul (when Roger de Warenne, son of the great Earl of Surrey, practised as a scribe and illuminator on his retirement to that monastery), St. Martin's of Tournay, St. Amand, Benedictbeuern, Lobbes, and Weissobrunn could all boast accomplished calligraphers. The last establishment produced the celebrated Diemudis, who, though a woman, was distinguished by a most extraordinary activity and skill.

Nor are these all that could be named, for by no means least among them we may quote Monte Cassino, many of whose elegant productions have been published by the present occupants of the monastery. Then the Greek miniaturists of the eleventh century are once more to the front. The famous Slav Evangeliary of Ostromir (1056-67) shows us a MS. probably executed for a governor of Novgorod, which contains by no means despicable work, whether in the figures of the evangelists or the ornamental borders. Of course, in Greek MSS. we know pretty well what to expect; fairly good ornament, rich details of embroidery, etc., wilfulness of colour in architecture, mannerism in the attitudes and faces, but good, clever technic and bright gold.

Lastly, there is the celebrated Evangeliary given to San Benedetto of Mantua by the Countess Matilda now in the Vatican, enriched with little miniatures from the Life of the Virgin, which Lanzi declares surpass everything else he ever saw of the same period.

The Poitevin MS. at Poitiers, a biographical compilation of saints in honour of St. Radegonde, though nothing wonderful, is worth recording as a transitional example just before the close of the century. As an example of the latter part of a continual deterioration, it should be worse than anything preceding. Yet it is not so. It is certainly heavy and rather dull, and the drawing far from excellent, but it is also, on the other hand, far from "frankly horrible." In introducing examples of other schools into this chapter the writer's object has solely been to vindicate the illuminators of the eleventh century from the sweeping charge sometimes made against them of absolute deterioration. Of the school directly under our notice, the charge is certainly not true, and the wretched stuff cited in support of it can only be looked upon as accidental salvages of no artistic value whatever.

In proof that the book-work of the eleventh century was not all worthless, we may refer to just one example. It is a MS. consisting of but a few fragments executed at Luxeuil under Abbat Gerard II. The remains are such as to cause regret for the loss of the rest. On one page Christ is shown seated on a rich sella covered with an embroidered cushion in the manner of the consular diptychs. He is clothed in a pale yellow tunic, over which is worn a purple pallium with a white border. He is beardless, and his brown hair is kept close to the head and neck, and falls over the shoulders. The feet are nude and by no means ill-drawn. Surrounding the head is a cruciform nimbus enclosed in a circle—both cross and circle being pale green, the latter outlined with red. The chief fault of the head is the excessive length of the nose and the wide stare of the eyes. The right arm is raised somewhat as in the St. Sernin Evangeliary, but with the palm outwards, and much superior in drawing.

The whole figure is painted on, or at least surrounded by, a golden background—so far indicating the Byzantine origin of the design. It is enclosed in a cusped aureola formed of several coloured bands of green, violet, and rose. This shows German taste. Eight circlets or medallions surround this figure of Christ, four of which contain the symbols of the evangelists; the other four—Isaiah, Daniel, Ezechiel, and Jeremiah. All hold portions of the band which connects them, and on which appears a series of inscriptions in Latin. These consist of passages from the Vulgate.

The whole picture is placed in a square frame consisting of bands of various colours and gold outlined in red. The inner ground is chiefly blue, and the names of the prophets and evangelists are painted on it in white Roman capitals. Taken altogether it is a very splendid page, but even this is surpassed in gorgeous richness of ornament by the miniature of St. Mark. And the borders of other pages in this Luxeuil fragment are full of ornament, giving the impression that the work was imitated from that of the goldsmith and enameller. The figures and symbols of the evangelists in these early Gospel texts are fully explained after St. Jerome by Alcuin, whose revision of the Vulgate forms the text of the Durham Book already referred to.

The "Manual" shortly to be mentioned differs somewhat in its explanation of these symbols. The curious combination called the "Tetra morph" is a compound of the four attributes or symbols into a single figure, to signify that the four evangelists give only one gospel, and ought not to be separated. It occurs frequently in Greek, but only seldom in Latin or Western iconography.[23]

[23] On this figure see Annales Archologiques, tom. 8, p. 206, etc.



CHAPTER XVI

ARTISTIC EDUCATION IN THE CLOISTER

The "Manual"—Its discovery—Its origin and contents—Didron's translation—The "Compendium" of Theophilus—Its contents—English version by Hendrie—Benedictine and Cistercian illumination—How they differ—Character of monastic architects and artists.

About the twelfth century comes forward the mention of a certain manual minutely detailing every process of painting, and laying down rules for the due composition and arrangement of every subject to be represented in the sacred history and other books connected with divine service. How long such a manual had been in use is unknown, but it is thought that something of the kind must have existed from the time, at least, of Justinian, perhaps earlier. The manual here referred to was found by M. Didron at Sphigmenou, on Mt. Athos. This little monastery is said to have been founded by the Empress Pulcheria, sister of the Emperor Theodosius the Younger. She died in the year 453. Theodosius, it may be remembered, was himself an admirable penman and illuminator, so much so as to have acquired the cognomen of Kalligrphos.

The monastery is built in a narrow valley by the seaside, between three little hills, and as it were "squeezed" in, and hence its name (in Greek σφιγμένος), which describes its situation exactly. It is occupied by about thirty unusually neat and orderly monks, who are justly proud of the few relics and curiosities which they exhibit to visitors. It was at Sphigmenou that Curzon saw the piece of ancient jewellery set with diamonds and a Russian or Bulgarian MS. of the Gospels.

The book which M. Didron found there is the copy of an older MS. which, it is said, was copied by Dionysius, one of the monks, from the works of the once celebrated master, Manuel Panselines of Thessalonica, who was the Giotto of the Byzantine school and flourished in the twelfth century. If by works the monk meant literary, it is most likely that it was the transcript of a still older document. If by works Dionysius meant paintings, it is a manual of his practice. One of his pupils, in order to propagate the art of painting which he had learnt at Thessalonica, writes down the series of subjects to be taken from the Bible, so as to epitomise the divine scheme of salvation, and describes the manner in which the events of the Old Testament, and the miracles and parables of the New, ought to be represented. He mentions the scrolls and inscriptions (such as we noticed in the Gospels of Luxeuil) belonging to each of the prophets and evangelists, with the names and characteristics of the principal saints in the order of the menologium or martyrology, and then goes on to direct how the subjects should be arranged on the walls and cupolas of the churches.

The Manual of Dionysius is an abstract of this wide scheme, but is still very comprehensive. The copy of it seen by Didron was one belonging to a monk of Sphigmenou named Joasaph, who was himself a painter. It was "loaded with notes added by himself and his master, which in course of time would be incorporated, according to immemorial custom, in the text." In this way, indeed, the Manual has grown to what it is at present. A transcript of it may probably be found in every monastery belonging to the Greek Church. Another monk named Macarios, also a painter, had a fine copy of it laid open in his atelier, and his pupils read from it in turn, whilst the rest painted according to its directions. For the scheme itself we must refer the reader to the second volume of Didron's Christian Iconography, p. 193. Unfortunately the transcriber did not think it of sufficient importance or relevancy to copy the first part, as being purely technical and dealing merely with the art of painting. The scheme, therefore, only contains the part relating expressly to iconography. It is to be regretted, too, that this part also has been in some places considerably abridged, as dealing with Greek art and martyrology more copiously than, it was thought by the translator, would be interesting to English readers. There are numerous good and reliable introductory works dealing with early Christian art, besides the greater treatises to which the student who wants to pursue this line of research shall be directed later on. But there is another of these original manuals to which we must call attention, as especially dealing with the practice of monastic artists in the twelfth and following centuries.

The one to which we now refer is quite distinct from the Greek Manual which we just mentioned, and by way of contrast may be called the Latin Manual as being originally composed in that language. Moreover, as the Greek Manual formed the guide and vade mecum of all the painters of the Greek Church, so this Latin one became the indispensable monitor in all Latin foundations. Its origin was German, and said to be the compilation of a Benedictine monk who is variously spoken of as Rutgerius, Rugerius, Rotkerius, etc., and assigned by different editors and critics to either the eleventh, twelfth, or thirteenth centuries. Probably we shall not be far wrong in placing him about the middle of the twelfth. The treatise is known as Diversarum Artium Schedula, and the compiler of it calls himself simply Theophilus presbiter humilis, which, of course, records nothing but his personal modesty.

It was at first attributed to Tuotilo of St. Gallen. This opinion was put forward by Lessing, but it had no foundation whatever beyond the fact of Tuotilo's well-known versatility.[24] Besides, Tuotilo lived in the ninth century. But really the question of attributions does not concern us here. It matters little who he was outside the Treatise, and certainly we shall not discuss the question further. It is with the Treatise that we are concerned. We shall simply call the author Theophilus, and his work the Compendium. Let us turn to it at once.

[24] Tuotilo was renowned throughout all Germany as painter, architect, preacher, professor, musician, calligrapher, Latinist, Hellenist, sculptor, and astronomer.

The Compendium, which is thus known to contain the working methods of all the monastic illuminators, mosaicists, glass painters, enamellers, and so forth, throughout Germany, Lombardy, and France, consists of three books, containing altogether one hundred and ninety-five chapters of definite and special instructions in artistic matters. Book I., comprising forty chapters, treats of the preparation, mixture, and use of colours for wall-painting, panel, and parchment, i.e. for the decoration of churches, furniture, and books. It contains some most curious and valuable instructions for the employment of gold, silver, and other metals in the decoration of MSS.; how it should be applied; whether in leaf or as an ink; how raised and burnished, down to the minutest details of practice; how colours are to be tempered (i.e. mixed); what media or temperings are best for each colour, according to the surface to which it is to be applied. Such is the Compendium. We need not, therefore, wonder at its popularity and the estimation in which it was held.

Thirty-one chapters on glass, glass painting, enamelling, etc., form a second book, and the third and last book contains some hundred and twenty-four chapters on gold and silver work—the art of the goldsmith—in cups, chalices, vases, candelabra, shrines, and so on. It is the first book that is of most interest to us, and had we space we would have liked to quote from its pages. But as it is we can only refer the reader to the work itself. It is to be met with in various forms and editions. First, we recommend the English translation by Robert Hendrie. The oldest MS. of the work is one of the twelfth century in the Library at Wolfenbttel. The next is in the Imperial Library at Vienna. Fragments of other copies exist in several other public libraries, but the completest copy known is that in the Harl.[25] Collection of the British Museum used by Hendrie as the basis of his translation (8, 1847).

[25] 1 Harl. MS. 3915.

It was, as we have said, in the eleventh and twelfth centuries especially that the great abbeys were founded. And it cannot be too clearly stated that the principal abbatial churches—those most splendid monuments of architecture whose structure and dimensions are still the admiration of the most cultured critics, and in which all the rules of art were so marvellously applied—were the work of simple monks. The great Church of St. Benignus at Dijon (so often spoken of by writers on Burgundian art) was built in 1001, under Abbat William, assisted by a young monk named Hunaldus. The period between 1031 and 1060 saw the creation of the grand abbatial Church of St. Remi at Reims. In the words of the Comte de Montalembert: "From the very beginning of the Monastic Orders St. Benedict had provided in his Rule that there should be artists in the monasteries. He had imposed on the exercise of their art only one condition—humility." Hence it is that all we know of the author of the Compendium from himself is "humilis presbiter Theophilus." For the same reason Tuotilo and Folchard and Sintramn and the rest are never anxious to put their names upon their work. For the same reason the occurrence of an artist's name in a monastic MS. is quite exceptional and unexpected. The foresight of St. Benedict "was accomplished and his law faithfully fulfilled." The Benedictine monasteries soon possessed not only libraries but ateliers, where architecture, painting, mosaic, sculpture, metal-chasing, calligraphy, ivory carving, gem-setting, book-binding, and all the branches of ornamentation were studied and practised with equal care and success, without interfering in the least with the exact and austere discipline of the foundation. The teaching of these various arts formed an essential part of monastic education. "The greatest and most saintly abbeys were precisely those most renowned for their zeal in the culture of Art. St. Gallen in Germany, Monte Cassino in Italy, Cluny in France, were for centuries the mother-cities of Christian Art." And after the establishment of the reformed colony at Citeaux, the Cistercian Order became the one above all others which has left the most perfect edifices, and if the Cistercian illumination may not claim the splendour of some contemporary examples, it often excels them in soundness of design and severe correctness of execution.

In saying that all this kind of work was executed by monks, we are speaking literally. The monks were not only the architects, but also the masons, and even the hodmen of their edifices. Nor were the superiors in this respect different from their humble followers. Whilst ordinary monks were often the architects-in-chief of the constructions, the abbats voluntarily accepted the rle of labourers. During the building of the Abbey of Bee, in 1033, the founder and first abbat, grand-seigneur though he was, worked as a common mason's labourer, carrying on his back the lime, sand, and stones necessary for the builder. This was Herluin. Another Norman noble, Hugh, Abbat of Selby in Yorkshire, when, in 1096, he rebuilt in stone the whole of that important monastery, putting on the labourer's blouse, mixed with the other masons and shared their labours. Monks, illustrious by birth, distinguished themselves by sharing the most menial occupations. It is related of Roger de Warenne that when he retired to Evroul, he took up quite a serious rle of this kind in cleaning the shoes of the brethren, and performing other offices which a mere cottager would have probably considered degrading.

Occasionally in our school histories we come across the mention of a man like Dunstan, of whom it is related as a wonderful thing that he was at the same time a metal worker, architect, and calligrapher; but monastic biographies abound in such instances. We have already quoted several. "The same man was frequently," says Montalembert, "architect, goldsmith, bell-founder, miniaturist, musician, calligrapher, organ builder, without ceasing to be theologian, preacher, litterateur, sometimes even bishop, or intimate counsellor of princes."[26]

[26] "L'Art et les Moines," Ann. Archologiques, t. vi. p. 121, etc.



CHAPTER XVII

THE RISE OF GOTHIC ILLUMINATION

Germany the chief power in Europe in the twelfth century—Rise of Italian influence—The Emmeram MSS.—Coronation of Henry II.—The Apocalypse—The "Hortus Deliciarum"—Romanesque—MS. of Henry the Lion—The Niedermnster Gospels—Description of the MS.—Rise of Gothic—Uncertainty of its origin—The spirit of the age.

In the chapter on Othonian art we saw how the ornamentation of books was drawn away from the great French centres, and began to take a new departure from the various leading cities of Germany, such as Bamberg, which the Othos had made their capital. Whilst the decline, which was the inevitable consequence of a personal government like that of Charlemagne, took place in France, it was but natural that the new artistic movement at Bamberg should become the fashion, and Germany predominant in art, as she was in politics. In the twelfth century the German Empire was the principal power in Europe. France, Italy, England, and Spain were all more or less secondary. Italy, however, was already on the alert. She was initiating certain movements in social life that must soon withdraw the cultivation of all the arts from the control of the monasteries. At the same time the love of learning and personal accomplishments of the second and third Othos and (St.) Henry II. soon prepared the Imperial Court to become as brilliant as classical scholarship and artistic skill of the highest class could make it.

The wave of Byzantine influence which had passed over Germany by the time of Henry II. had immensely benefited the Germans. We notice it especially in the miniatures of the Gospel-books. The technic is much more masterly, the painting really methodical in soundly worked body-colour with a delicate sense of harmony, and showing no longer that coarse handling and slovenliness of execution that marks some of the Carolingian miniatures. In the figure a sense of proportion has been gained, the tendency, perhaps, being rather to excessive tallness, as compared with the thick-set proportions of the Carolingian work. Again, expression is improved—the faces are more intellectual—not beautiful but strong, and quite superior to the utterly expressionless faces of the Carolingian type.

Take, for example, that fine Missal now at Munich (Cimel. 60—Lat. 4456), in which St. Henry, who is bearded, receives his crown from a bearded Christ, his arms being upheld by two bishops, Ulrich of Augsburg and Emmeram of Regensburg, the two great saints of Bavaria. We know these to be the personages represented, because two inscriptions tell us so. To the one supporting the King's right hand: "Huius VODALRICVS cor regis signet et actus." To the other: "EMMERANVS ei faveat solamine dulci." The Christ is seated on a rainbow within a cusped aureola or "amande" of several bands of different colours, on the central one being inscribed in a mixture of Greek and Latin characters—one of the new fashions brought in by the Greek revival:

"Clemens XPE tuo longum da vivere XPIC to: Ut tibi devotus non perdat temporis usus."

Some writers have thought this to be a picture of the Emperor's apotheosis, and that the crown is that of Life or Immortality; but such is certainly not the import of the above verses.

"O gentle Christ give to thy Christ long to live That devoted to Thee he may not lose the use of time."

Besides, two angels on either side Christ precipitately bestow on the Emperor the spear and sword of a temporal sovereignty. Round the Emperor are the words: "Ecce coronatur divinitus atque beatur. Rex pius Heinricus proavorum stirp(e) polosus," all which can scarcely refer to anything but his German Empire.

The expression, "give to thy Christ," is an allusion to the Hebrew usage of calling the king the "anointed" or the "Christ."

Besides the interest possessed by this MS. as a monument of the art of its own time, it has a special value resting in the fact that its illuminations were copied from the famous Emmeram Golden Gospels of Charles the Bald, written by Linthard and Berenger, and sent as a present to Regensburg. Another illumination in it, representing the enthronement of the Emperor, is extremely interesting as showing how the later artist renders the work of the earlier one. The general composition is precisely the same, the lower figures in the same attitudes and bearing the same insignia. But in the details of costume, and in the significant position of the Emperor, there are alterations. In the miniature of the Emmeram Gospels the two angels above are simply winged messengers of the usual biblical type; in the Missal they are cloaked and crowned and bear horns in their hands. In the older MS. the two crowned figures with horns on either side wear simple mural crowns; in the later one they are regal like those of the Emperor. The details also of the canopies are different. But the remarkable difference is that while Charles the Bald is beardless and bears nothing in his hands, merely sitting as if addressing an assembly, Henry II. holds in his right hand a sceptre and in his left an orb and cross. Here is a distinctly new feature with a meaning. Here are the symbols of authority in the Emperor's own hands, and not merely in those of his attendants.[27] These two MSS. are worthy of careful study.

[27] See p. 92.

In another Missal in the library at Bamberg is a miniature of the Emperor presenting the book to the Virgin. In the great Evangeliary presented by the Emperor Henry II. to the Cathedral of Bamberg there is a grand picture of the Emperor and his consort the famous saint Cunegunda being crowned by Christ, with SS. Peter and Paul standing at the sides. Here also, as in the Carolingian MS. already mentioned, are the nations bringing tribute, but not in the same order. Here Germany stands upright between two figures of Gaul and Rome, while six others appear simply as busts (Munich, Cimel. 60. 4456).

The twelfth century was clearly much given to symbolism and allegory, as shown in apocalyptic commentaries and similar works. A very remarkable "Apocalypse" is that in the library of the Marquis d'Astorga. The latter is remarkably rich in pictures, which have been described by M.A. Bachelin of Paris. The drawing in these pictures reminds one of the bas-reliefs of the campaigns of Hadrian and Trajan and other work of the early Roman centuries. One hundred and ten miniatures of uncommon interest constitute the illustrations, many of which are perfect curiosities of symbolism, depicting not only the four figures of the evangelists, but the mysteries of the seals and vials, serpents, beasts, etc., on yellow, red, green, blue, and brown backgrounds. The draperies in some of the miniatures show Byzantine teaching, but with the grandiose style of the early Roman times. The MS. it might be compared with of the twelfth century is the "Hortus Deliciarum" of the Abbess Herrade. This latter MS., which unfortunately was burnt with many other treasures during the siege of Strassburg by the Germans in 1870, was a veritable treasury of medival customs, furniture, and costumes, illustrating a medley of encyclopdic information for the use of the nuns and secular students of the Abbey of Hohenburg in Alsace. The good abbess called her book a "Garden of Delights."

It is known that it dated from 1159, as that date and also the date of 1175 occurred in its pages. We do not know whether the authoress was also the illuminatrix, but at any rate she directed the illumination. Their style is of the same type as that of the Apocalypse just spoken of, somewhat monumental as figures of the Liberal Arts, allegorical figures of the virtues and vices, and the syrens as symbols of sensual temptation. There was a figure of the Church riding upon a beast with the four heads of the evangel-symbols—the sun and moon in chariots as in the classical mythology, and scenes of warfare, marriage festivities, banquets, everything indeed depicting the life of contemporary persons.[28] The drawing and treatment generally is of no very skilful kind—the colouring bright and in body-colour. Draperies as usual much folded and fluttering, and the heads generally of the calm expression of the later French school, but the action sometimes very spirited.

[28] For a copious and exhaustive account of the "Hortus," see "Het Gildeboek," Utrecht, 1877, v. i. Also Engelhardt, Herrad v. H., etc., 8, with atlas of twelve plates, 1818.

The title began thus: "Incipit hortus deliciarum, in quo collectis floribus scripturarum assidue jucundetur turmula adolescentularum." In the Rhytmus came the lines:—

"Salve cohors virginum Hohenburgensium Albens quasi lilium Amans dei filium

Herrat devotissima Tua fidelissima Mater et ancillula Cantat tibi cantica

Sic et liber utilis Tibi delectabilis Et non cesses volvere Hanc in tuo pectore."

In the Netherlands, which mostly at this time lay within the boundary of Lotharingia or Lorraine, the style of illumination was much the same as in other German districts. Gospel-books and Psalters, however, exhibit features somewhat akin to English work.

In the eleventh and twelfth centuries the continental methods prevail in more solid painting and less penwork.

Of the twelfth-century work of Germany examples are exceedingly numerous, stretching over every province from West to East, as Westphalia, the Palatinate, Burgundy, Switzerland and Bavaria, extending even into Bohemia. An Evangeliary in the University Library at Prag agrees altogether with those of Germany.

Towards the middle of the twelfth century, with the accession of the House of Hohenstaufen (1138, etc.), arose a new style, since called Romanesque, of which many examples are to be found in various libraries. It is not very easy to select the most typical examples, but one good and typical MS. is found in a Gospel-book at Carlsruhe, which contains some capital miniatures of this most thoroughly German style.

Under Frederick Barbarossa, as under the Caroling Emperors and the Othos, we may note a wave of new life, especially in Saxony. A contrast as regards artistic ability to the "Hortus Deliciarum" is the Gospel-book executed for Henry the Lion at the convent of Helmershausen, once in the Cathedral Library at Prag, and bought by King George of Hanover.[29] In the page of the Eusebian Canons we see features which take us across the plains of Lombardy to the doors of S. Michele of Pavia, and to the churches of Venice. The columns rest on crouching animals. Allegorical figures are introduced striving with each other as in the later Gothic illuminations. A half-nude figure of Faith vanquishes the champion of Paganism. On the dedication page sits the Madonna with SS. John Baptist and Bartholomew, and below them the patron saints of Brunswick, Blaize, and Egidius leading forth the Duke and his wife, Mathilda. It may indeed be called a splendid book. Among the rest of the pictures, some of them within richly decorated borders, occurs the usual representation of the Duke and his Duchess receiving crowns. The figures are well drawn, even elegant, the draperies good, and the colouring skilful.

[29] See F. Culemann in Neue hannov. Zeitung, 1861, Nos. 22-4.

One of the many characteristic MSS. of this period to be seen in continental libraries is the "Mater Verborum" of the monk Conrad, of Scheyern in Bavaria, a noted scribe, illuminator, goldsmith, and grammarian. The subject is one that scarcely gives promise of lending itself to pictorial illustration, but after the successful attempts of Theodulf we may be prepared for anything in the way of diagram and symbol. Imagine a dictionary in which not only actual objects are pictorially represented, but also abstract terms. Music, philosophy, virtues and vices illustrated by historical instances—sacred subjects treated in the manner of the glass painters which is so commonly found in German and French work of this period.

Of twelfth-century illumination in general it may be said that it shows a marked effort towards true artistic design and subtle beauty of linear outline. Some of the noblest curve-drawing, with rich and massive grouping of foliages, is to be found in the ornamental initials and dignified border designs presented on the later examples of the century, and it is very interesting to observe the rapid pace at which the climax is reached in mere calligraphic ornament after the opening of the Gothic period. Initials become smaller but exquisitely drawn, and reasonable expression takes the place of the senseless stare or grotesque exaggeration of attitude and feature which detract from the artistic value of all preceding efforts. To conclude our list of German illuminations of purely monastic production, we will bring forward one more example of women's work, which whether as regards its curious illustrations of symbolism, or its richly foliaged geometrical backgrounds and borders, is one of the most interesting MSS. in any collection. It is the Evangeliary of the Abbess Uota, or perhaps, rather, Tuota of Niedermnster, a lady of the House of the Counts of Falckenstein (1177-80); or of Utta, abbess from 1009 to 1012, but more probably the former. Another, Tutta, ruled the abbey from 920 to 934, and still another 1239-42. This precious MS., which Cahier has very fully described as the "Manuscrit du Niedermuenster de Ratisbonne," is now in the Royal Library at Munich (Cimel. 35). Some writers, in speaking of it, have classed it among the MSS. of the eleventh century, but it is too refined and too well done for that period, and, indeed, that it belongs to the latter part of the twelfth is almost proved from the work itself. Perhaps it was the profusion of inscriptions or legends placed all over the miniatures that gave the idea of its belonging to the eleventh century. In this respect the MS. certainly resembles the Evangeliary of Luxeuil already described. The miniature of the Crucifixion is very remarkable. Besides the figure of Christ showing a return to the primitive Syriac idea,[30] instead of the figures as usual of Mary and John, here are given allegorical figures of Life and Death. (Cf. Fest. in exaltatione sce crucis. Ad Laudes, 14th Sept.). Perhaps the best commentary on these old figures is the "Biblia Pauperum," as it is commonly called, or as it should be called, the Bible of the poor preachers. It also has the old allegories and inscriptions rendered into later forms.

[30] Cf. the Rabula MS. at Vienna.

As for the texts or inscriptions, they would require a commentary to themselves—not to speak of translations and remarks upon the calligraphy. One of these remarkable miniatures may be described, as it depicts the presentation of the volume to the Madonna. Our Lady in the centre of the design is seated on a Byzantine sedile with the infant Jesus on her knees. She is crowned, and has the nimbus, and appears as if intended to represent the glory of the Church. Her hand is raised as in the act of teaching. Christ, also, has the nimbus, but with the cross upon it, and raises his hand in the attitude of benediction. In the tympanum of the semicircle over the Madonna, written in letters of gold on purple, surrounded by the word "Sancta" in ordinary ink, is the monogram of Maria, having a small sun and moon above it, and other inscriptions, partly Latin, partly Greek. Below the Madonna, on the left, stands the abbess, her knees slightly bent, holding up her book, and clothed in the costume of her Order, but coloured, no doubt, simply for artistic reasons. Thus she wears a blue veil and a claret-coloured robe. In the reversed semicircle before her is another monogram, Uota or Tuota, a name which perhaps may be translated Uta, Utta, Ida, etc. It has been said already who she is likely to have been. It does not follow, of course, that she herself wrote or illuminated the book she is presenting, but judging from similar instances, as e.g. Herrade of Landsberg and Hrosvita of Gandersheim, she may have done so.

Still the work looks technically too masterly for anyone not a trained artist to have done. In the corners are small quadretti, containing busts of the four cardinal virtues:—Prudence, Justice, Temperance, and Fortitude; and in circlets in the centre of each border are Faith, Hope, and Charity, the latter twice, at top and bottom. A number of extraordinary beasts fill up little niches in the design, which may possibly be also symbolical, but possibly also nothing but artistic fancies. The other miniatures we must pass over. Nevertheless those representing the four evangelists are worth examination;[31] the ornamentation being especially rich and elaborate. Let us now turn our attention to a new element—a new spirit we might term it—which was manifesting itself in Italy and France. We cannot too strongly insist upon the fact that whatever appears in illumination has appeared first in architecture and its auxilliary arts. Now we have to see how this fact begins to change almost entirely the character of the ornamentation of books. During the latter part of the twelfth century, when precisely we cannot say, nor where, a new form of architecture began to show itself. This new style, laying aside both the classic cornice and the Romanesque arch, makes use of a new vertical principle of construction, called in French the ogive or arch, composed of two sections only, instead of the whole semicircle. By some fatality, of which no exact explanation can be given, English writers have given this new style the name of Gothic. Scores of cathedrals throughout Europe are called Gothic cathedrals, whereas in all probability, if we exclude Sweden, there is only one really Gothic building in the world, that is the Tomb of Theodoric at Ravenna, and none of the so-called Gothic cathedrals are in the least like it. As to the invention itself, it has been claimed by almost every nationality in Europe. There can be no doubt that accidentally, or otherwise, the pointed arch had been used often enough without any idea of its adoption as a principle of construction even in ancient buildings. The famous gate at Mycoene is one instance. This is not the place to discuss the question, so we let it pass. We could point out long and elaborate arguments intended to prove that it originated in England—that it originated in France—in Germany.[32] Possibly they may all be right in a sense, for most probably the origin was not in any particular locality, but in the religious spirit of the time. It was a general revival of the Church itself that was its cause. If any special locality has more reason on its side than another, it is probably France, but as we say, that is not an essential point. It must suffice us here that it arose, and that by the end of the twelfth century it was a fact. And the remarkable part about it is that it was by the influence of lay artists and especially of the freemasons that it became the accepted architecture of Christendom.