In the middle ages 131

Neo-Platonic philosophy. And since the thirteenth

century, this phenomenon has never repeated it-

self.

Far from being an anachronism, this remarkable

fact of universal agreement in the West satisfies the

profound aspirations of the time. For, there was

one system of education for princes, lords and

clerks ; one sacred and learned language, the Latin ;

one code of morals; one ritual; one hierarchy, the

Church ; one faith and one common western interest

against heathendom and against Islam; one com-

munity on earth and in heaven, the community of

the saints ; and also one system of feudal habits for

the whole West. Customs, characteristic of the

courtesy and chivalry which were born in France

in the preceding century, had spread to all coun-

tries, and had created among the nobility of the

various nations a sort of kindred spirit. The net-

work of feudalism embraced all social classes, and

everywhere the system had common features. The

Crusades had taught the barons to know each other.

Commerce, also, established points of contact be-

tween the French and the English and the Flem-

ish and the Italians, and predisposed men to a

mode of thinking, which was no longer local.

Everywhere work was organized on the principles \l

of guild and corporation. '

The rapid expansion of Gothic art is another ex-

ample of the felt need of a conception of beauty not

limited to any one people. A marvelous architec-

132 PHILOSOPHY AND CIVILIZATION

ture and sculpture saw the light of day in the Isle

of France. The cathedrals of Sens, Noyon, Sen-

lis, Laon, Notre Dame de Paris, Chartres, Aux-

erre, Rouen, Rheims, Amiens, Bourges were then

either in process of building or completed. The

garland of masterpieces, begun under Louis VII

in northern and central Europe, and by Henry II

Plantagenet in the West, was completed and en-

riched under Philip Augustus; and the forms of

the pointed arch attained then a purity and a

beauty which have never been surpassed. The new'

style of art passed almost immediately to the Eng-

lish cathedrals of Canterbury, Lincoln, Westmin-

ster, and York. In Spain, the cathedral of Burgos

(1230) was inspired by that of Bourges; the cathe-

dral of Toledo was due to a French architect; the

cathedral of Leon, the most perfect of all, was built

on the basis of French ideas ; — and the same is true

also of the German Gothic style general^, — thus,

for example, the cathedrals of Miinster, Madge-

burg, Cologne, and Bamberg were patterned after

French standards, and the pointed arch is definitely

called "French style" by the builders of the Wimp-

fen cathedral, opus francigeniim.*'^ As Male has

so well shown, the new art became "oecumenical."^^

4" Compare the interesting work of E. Mdle, L'art allemand et

I'nrf, frnnqain du moijen Age, Paris, 1917. At Wimpfen, the priest

Richard summons an architect "qui tunc noviter de villa parisiensi

c partihus vcnerat franciac, opere frdiicifjcno basilicam e scctis la]ii(i-

ihus construi jubet," p. 148.

<7 Mfi,le, L'art reliqieux du 13" sUcle en France, p. 5.