spiration. Many a sunny facade shows us scenes of
rural life--sowing, reaping, vine-dressing, and so forth--fashioned as
a calendar in stone, and many a peasant must have rejoiced as he saw
himself and his occupation thus represented in effigy. Fortunately for
the poor toiler, the Church not only taught that "to labour is to
worship," but further honoured work by thus representing it at the
very entrance to the sanctuary, so making it, as it were, the "open
sesame" to higher things.

In Books of Hours and illuminated MSS., before the complete border of
flowers, birds, and small grotesques was developed, we find ornamental
flourishes, like the growth of ivy and hawthorn, splendidly free in
design, and painted with evident joy even in the minutest bud or
tendril. Everywhere may this love of Nature striving for expression be
seen. But we must turn to the poems and romances if we would fully
realise it in all its simplicity and truth, since it is in these alone
that we get at the actual mediaeval feeling unalloyed with all that we
ourselves have, perhaps unwittingly, read into it.

[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth._

BOOK OF HOURS.

French, 14th Century, Brit. Mus.

_To face page 176._]

"All hearts are uplifted and made glad in the time of April and May,
when once again the meadows and the pastures become green." So says
one of the old romancers. And this joy in returning spring seems to
have pervaded mediaeval thought and expression. Little is this to be
wondered at when we call to mind the long dreary winters spent in cold
and ill-lit castles, or in dark, draughty houses and hovels. Before
glass, long regarded as a luxury, came into general use in dwellings,
the only protection from rain and cold consisted in wooden shutters,
or movable frames with horn slabs (necessarily small), or varnished
parchment. In truth, the only warm, bright place was the chimney
corner, and here, as near as might be to the blazing logs, the
long days of winter were spent in chess-playing, broidery,
lute-playing, and love-making, the monotony of this only occasionally
broken by the arrival of some wandering minstrel who sang of war and
love, or of some packman laden with sundry wares prized of womankind.
But in winter such wayfarers were rare, and life was, perforce, one of
boredom and discomfort. Thus there was exceeding joy when "woods and
thickets donned their rich green mantling of resplendent sheen."

[Illustration: _Photo. Macbeth.