Mediaeval art, whatever else is to be said about it, was new and independent, and it had all the variety, the audacious experiments, characteristic of a living art. Nothing is so foolish as to imagine that it was uniform and unchanging. Indeed, from the historical point of view, the interest of the study of it is curiously contrasted with that of the art of the ancient world. There we have only an imperfect and fragmentary knowledge of the earlier and ruder form; its history, as we know it, might almost be said to begin with the perfection of the sixth and fifth centuries, and what we know after that is the history of a long decadence, not indeed without new developments of importance, as for instance in the architectural structure of Roman building, and perhaps in the sculpture of the Early Empire on one side, and in certain aspects of Latin literature on another. The history of mediaeval art is the history of the long development from what are generally rude forms to the highly developed art of the thirteenth century, a development full of incidents and experiments and variety. I have called the early form rude, but the phrase is not very happy, as those who know either the early mosaic or the early epic will understand.
There are still some people, I suppose, who think that mediaeval poetry was all of one kind, cast in one mould, but the truth is that it is of every form and character. It ranges from the bold imaginative realism of the Epic of England, Iceland, Germany, and France, to the exquisite and gracious but somewhat artificial allegory of the Romance of the Rose. It includes the first great emotional poetry of the modern world—the sense of the greatness and tragedy of human passion has perhaps never been expressed in more moving terms than in the Tristan and Iseult of Thomas or Beroul—but it also includes the mordant satire of the Renard poetry and of Jean de Meun, and the gross realistic humour of the Fabliaux. The mediaeval drama, in whose complex development we have to trace many strands, probably represents in its oldest forms the coarse farcical buffoonery which may be related to the last fashions of the ancient world; it received a new impulse from the dramatization of scripture history in the twelfth century; but in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, at least in France, it had already become substantially a drama of romantic or contemporary life, as we can see in Jean Bodel's Jeu de St. Nicholas, in Adam de la Halle's Jeu de la Feuillée and Robin et Marion, and in dramas like the Empress of Rome or the Otho. Whatever criticism we might want to make on mediaeval literature, at least we cannot say that it was of one type and of one mood.
It is hardly necessary to point out the movement and changes in the other forms of art in the Middle Ages; it is only necessary to remind ourselves that, while we can see that the artists were often hampered by inadequate technical knowledge, they were not conventional or merely imitative.
It would be impossible here to consider the history of mosaic painting, and its development from the decadent Graeco-Roman work of Santa Pudenziana in Rome, to the magnificent and living decorations of St. Mark's in Venice, or of the cathedral of Monreale. It is enough to remind ourselves of the immense interval which lies between the rude but living sculpture of the ninth century, and the exquisite grace of Chester or Wells, and of that development of architecture which culminates in the majesty of Durham, and in the beauty of Chartres and Westminster Abbey.
It is doubtful if we have yet at all fully or correctly appreciated the nature of mediaeval art; there has been a good deal of foolish talk about 'primitives', which usually goes with a singular ignorance of mediaeval civilization; the one thing which is already clear, and which grows clearer, is that the men of those ages had an instinct and a passion for beauty which expressed itself in almost every thing that they touched; and, whatever we have gained, we have in a large measure lost this.
The mediaeval world was then a living growing world, neither cut off from the past, nor unrelated to the future. It was a rough and turbulent world, our ancestors were dogged, quarrelsome, and self-assertive, and the first task of civilization was to produce some sort of decent order. The world was a long way off from the firm urbanity of the English policeman. And yet the men of the Middle Ages never fell into that delusion which, as it would seem, has ruined other civilizations; the great effort for order was not in their mind to be fulfilled by any mere mechanical discipline, by any system imposed from outside, the only system of order which they were prepared to accept was one which should express the character, the tradition, and finally the will of the whole community. The great phrase of Edward I's summons to Parliament, 'Quod omnes tangit, ab omnibus approbetur' (That which concerns all, must be approved by all), was not a mere tag, as some foolish people have thought, but expressed the character and the genius of a living political civilization.
And this rough turbulent world was inspired by a great breath of spiritual and intellectual and artistic life and freedom.
It might well seem as though the Church and religion were merely a new bondage, and in part that is true, but it is not the whole truth. With all its mistakes the religion of the Middle Ages meant the growing apprehension of the reality of that 'love which moves the sun and other stars', it meant the growth of reverence for that which is beyond and above humanity and which is also within it. For it is the last truth of the Christian faith that we know God only under the terms of human life and nature. And with all the cruelty and brutality of the Middle Ages they taught men love as well as obedience.
Again, it was in these ages, as soon as the confusion of the outer world was a little reduced, that the passion for knowledge awoke again in men's hearts. It is true that some were afraid lest the eager inquiry of men's minds should destroy the foundations of that order which men were slowly achieving, but still the passionate pursuit of knowledge has rarely been more determined. And once again the world was rough, but these men had an instinct, a passion for beauty which expressed itself in almost everything which they touched. They had not, indeed, the almost miraculous sense and mastery of the great artists of Greece, that did not come again till the time of the great Italian artists of the fifteenth century. But they were free from pedantry, from formalism, they left the dying art of the ancient world and made their own way. Their sense of colour was almost infallible, as those who have seen the mosaics of the older Roman basilicas and of St. Mark's in Venice will know; but, indeed, we have only to look at the illuminated manuscripts which are to be found in all our libraries. And in that great art in which, above all perhaps, they expressed themselves, in their great architecture, we see the growth of a constructive genius which is only overshadowed by the superb beauty of its form.