which one might expect from an ``uncivilised Goth,'' a rough

backwoods-man who had no respect for the established rules of



classical art and who built his ``modern horrors'' to please his

own low tastes without a decent regard for the examples of



the Forum and the Acropolis.

And yet for several centuries this form of Gothic architecture



was the highest expression of the sincere feeling for art

which inspired the whole northern continent. From a previous



chapter, you will remember how the people of the late Middle

Ages lived. Unless they were peasants and dwelt in villages,



they were citizens of a ``city'' or ``civitas,'' the old Latin name

for a tribe. And indeed, behind their high walls and their deep



moats, these good burghers were true tribesmen who shared

the common dangers and enjoyed the common safety and prosperity



which they derived from their system of mutualprotection.

In the old Greek and Roman cities the market-place, where



the temple stood, had been the centre of civic life. During

the Middle Ages, the Church, the House of God, became such a



centre. We modern Protestant people, who go to our church

only once a week, and then for a few hours only, hardly know



what a mediaeval church meant to the community. Then, before

you were a week old, you were taken to the Church to be



baptised. As a child, you visited the Church to learn the holy

stories of the Scriptures. Later on you became a member



of the congregation, and if you were rich enough you built

yourself a separate little chapelsacred to the memory of the



Patron Saint of your own family. As for the sacred edifice,

it was open at all hours of the day and many of the night. In



a certain sense it resembled a modern club, dedicated to all the

inhabitants of the town. In the church you very likely caught



a first glimpse of the girl who was to become your bride at a

great ceremony before the High Altar. And finally, when the



end of the journey had come, you were buried beneath the

stones of this familiar building, that all your children and their



grandchildren might pass over your grave until the Day of

Judgement.



Because the Church was not only the House of God but

also the true centre of all common life, the building had to be



different from anything that had ever been constructed by

the hands of man. The temples of the Egyptians and the



Greeks and the Romans had been merely the shrine of a local

divinity. As no sermons were preached before the images of



Osiris or Zeus or Jupiter, it was not necessary that the interior

offer space for a great multitude. All the religious processions



of the old Mediterranean peoples took place in the open. But

in the north, where the weather was usually bad,



most functions were held under the roof of the church.

During many centuries the architects struggled with



this problem of constructing a building that was large

enough. The Roman tradition taught them how to build heavy



stone walls with very small windows lest the walls lose

their strength. On the top of this they then placed a



heavy stone roof. But in the twelfth century, after the

beginning of the Crusades, when the architects had seen the



pointed arches of the Mohammedan builders, the western builders

discovered a new style which gave them their first chance to make



the sort of building which those days of an intense religious

life demanded. And then they developed this strange style upon



which the Italians bestowed the contemptuous name of ``Gothic''or barbaric.

They achieved their purpose by inventing a vaulted roof which



was supported by ``ribs.'' But such a roof, if it became

too heavy, was apt to break the walls, just as a man



of three hundred pounds sitting down upon a child's chair

will force it to collapse. To overcome this difficulty, certain



French architects then began to re-enforce the walls with

``buttresses'' which were merely heavy masses of stone against



which the walls could lean while they supported the roof. And

to assure the further safety of the roof they supported the ribs



of the roof by so-called ``flying buttresses,'' a very simple

method of construction which you will understand at once when



you look at our picture.

This new method of construction allowed the introduction



of enormous windows. In the twelfth century, glass was still

an expensivecuriosity, and very few private buildings possessed



glass windows. Even the castles of the nobles were

without protection and this accounts for the eternal drafts



and explains why people of that day wore furs in-doors as

well as out.



Fortunately, the art of making coloured glass, with which

the ancient people of the Mediterranean had been familiar,



had not been entirely lost. There was a revival of stained

glass-making and soon the windows of the Gothic churches



told the stories of the Holy Book in little bits of brilliantly

coloured window-pane, which were caught in a long framework



of lead.

Behold, therefore, the new and glorious house of God,



filled with an eager multitude, ``living'' its religion as no people

have ever done either before or since! Nothing is considered



too good or too costly or too wondrous for this House of God

and Home of Man. The sculptors, who since the destruction



of the Roman Empire have been out of employment, haltingly

return to their noble art. Portals and pillars and buttresses



and cornices are all covered with carven images of Our Lord

and the blessed Saints. The embroiderers too are set to work



to make tapestries for the walls. The jewellers offer their

highest art that the shrine of the altar may be worthy of complete



adoration. Even the painter does his best. Poor man,

he is greatly handicapped by lack of a suitablemedium.



And thereby hangs a story.

The Romans of the early Christian period had covered the



floors and the walls of their temples and houses with mosaics;

pictures made of coloured bits of glass. But this art had been



exceedingly difficult. It gave the painter no chance to express

all he wanted to say, as all children know who have ever tried to



make figures out of coloured blocks of wood. The art of

mosaic paintingtherefore died out during the late Middle



Ages except in Russia, where the Byzantine mosaic painters

had found a refuge after the fall of Constantinople and continued



to ornament the walls of the orthodox churches until

the day of the Bolsheviki, when there was an end to the building



of churches.

Of course, the mediaeval painter could mix his colours with



the water of the wet plaster which was put upon the walls of

the churches. This method of painting upon ``fresh plaster''



(which was generally called ``fresco'' or ``fresh'' painting)

was very popular for many centuries. To-day, it is as rare



as the art of painting miniatures in manuscripts and among

the hundreds of artists of our modern cities there is perhaps



one who can handle this mediumsuccessfully. But during the

Middle Ages there was no other way and the artists were



``fresco'' workers for lack of something better. The method

however had certain great disadvantages. Very often the



plaster came off the walls after only a few years, or dampness

spoiled the pictures, just as dampness will spoil the pattern



of our wall paper. People tried every imaginable expedient

to get away from this plasterbackground. They tried to mix



their colours with wine and vinegar and with honey and with

the sticky white of egg, but none of these methods were satisfactory.



For more than a thousand years these experiments

continued. In painting pictures upon the parchment leaves



of manuscripts the mediaeval artists were very successful. But

when it came to covering large spaces of wood or stone with



paint which would stick, they did not succeed very well.

At last, during the first half of the fifteenth century, the



problem was solved in the southern Netherlands by Jan and

Hubert van Eyck. The famous Flemish brothers mixed their



paint with specially prepared oils and this allowed them to use

wood and canvas or stone or anything else as a background for



their pictures.

But by this time the religious ardour of the early Middle



Ages was a thing of the past. The rich burghers of the cities

were succeeding the bishops as patrons of the arts. And as



art invariably follows the full dinner-pail, the artists now began

to work for these worldly employers and painted pictures for



kings, for grand-dukes and for rich bankers. Within a very

short time, the new method of painting with oil spread through



Europe and in every country there developed a school of

special painting which showed the characteristic tastes of the



people for whom these portraits and landscapes were made.

In Spain, for example, Velasquez painted court-dwarfs



and the weavers of the royal tapestry-factories, and all sorts

of persons and subjects connected with the king and his court.



But in Holland, Rembrandt and Frans Hals and Vermeer

painted the barnyard of the merchant's house, and they painted



his rather dowdy wife and his healthy but bumptious children

and the ships which had brought him his wealth. In Italy on



the other hand, where the Pope remained the largest patron

of the arts, Michelangelo and Correggio continued to paint



Madonnas and Saints, while in England, where the aristocracy

was very rich and powerful and in France where the



kings had become uppermost in the state, the artists painted

distinguished gentlemen who were members of the government,



and very lovely ladies who were friends of His Majesty.

The great change in painting, which came about with the



neglect of the old church and the rise of a new class in society,

was reflected in all other forms of art. The invention of printing



had made it possible for authors to win fame and reputation

by writing books for the multitudes. In this way arose



the profession of the novelist and the illustrator. But the