In the middle ages 35

When loyalty became a Christian virtue, it in-

creased respect for women and probity in the

poor, — that probity which St. Louis IX said was

like sweet honey to his lips. Honour became the

pass-word of chivalry — a sort of moral institution

superimposed on feudalism. The social habits of

educated laymen were made gentler by the warm

contact of chivalry, and courteous manners spread

far and wide.

IV

But the twelfth century gave birth also to en-

tirely new forms of art, — and, indeed, in a marvel-

ous way. All branches on the tree of art began

quickly to flower under the grateful zephyrs of the

new spring that was come: chansons de geste, or

romances invented by the troubadours; the letters

of Abaelard and Heloise, which, however restrained,

reveal all the fervour of human love; those hymns

of purest Latin writen by men like St. Bernard, —

whose flow suggests now the murmuring of a brook

and anon the roaring of a river in flood — or those

stanzas penned by Adam of St. Victor, that won-

derful poet who, in the silence of his cloister at

Paris, sang the festivals of divine love in most

perfect Latin form."

But, above all, there were built at that time

those magnificent Romanesque abbeys and

В«

13(7/. Henry Adams, Mont St. Michel and Chartres, ch. XV:

"The Mystics."

36 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

churches with their varied new forms, — such as

barreled vaults, towers, doorways, cruciform

ground-plan, choirs with surrounding ambulatories

and radiating chapels. In these forms the func-

tions of the Church shine forth with marvelous

clarity, and yet in them the virile power of the

period is harmoniously revealed. Local schools of

architecture appeared, such as those of Normandy,

of Auvergne, of Poitou, of Burgundy; and the

Benedictine abbots were promoters of the new stan-

dard of architecture. They did not adopt a uni-

form Romanesque style ; rather they took over and

developed the architecture of the region in which

they happened to be. At the same time, they

pressed into the service of architecture all the de-

vices of ornamentation. The bare pillars were

clothed with life, their capitals were covered with

flowerings in stone; the portals were peopled with

statues; painted glass was put in the windows of

the sanctuaries ; frescoes or mural paintings covered

the walls and concealed the nakedness of the stone :

the whole church was covered with a mantle of

beauty. Artist-monks were trained in sculpturing

columns and statues and they travelled from one

workshop to another, while yet others opened

schools of painting, as in St. Savin near Poitiers

where the twelfth century frescoes still retain their

bright colouring."

1* In these frescoes the "courtesy" of the time is very striking,

especially in the bearing of ladies and knights, so full of elegance.