prince to be an art-patron. That required money, and hitherto even
princes had rarely been rich. The increasing wealth of England, France,
and Flanders at this time was based upon the wool industry and the
manufacture and commerce to which it gave rise. The Lord Chancellor
in the House of Lords to this day sits on a woolsack, which is a reminder
of the time when the woolsacks of England were the chief source of
the wealth of English traders.

After the Black Death, an awful plague that swept through Europe in
1349, a large part of the land of England was given up to sheep grazing,
because the population had diminished, and it took fewer people to
look after sheep than it did to till the soil. Although this had been
an evil in the beginning, it became afterwards a benefit, for English
wool was sold at an excellent price to the merchants of Flanders, who
worked it up into cloth, and in their turn sold that all over Europe
with big profits. The larger merchants who regulated the wool traffic
were prosperous, and so too the landowners and princes whose property
thus increased in value. The four sons of King John became very wealthy
men. Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, by marrying the heiress of
the Count of Flanders acquired the Flemish territory and the wealth
obtained from the wool trade and manufacture there. Berry and Anjou
were great provinces in France yielding a large revenue to their two
Dukes. Each of these princes employed several artists to illuminate
books for him in the most splendid way; they built magnificent chateaux,
and had tapestries and paintings made to decorate their walls. They
employed many sculptors and goldsmiths, and all gave each other as
presents works of art executed by their favourite artists. In the
British Museum there is a splendid gold and enamel cup that John, Duke
of Berry, caused to be made for his brother King Charles V.; to see
it would give you a good idea of the costliness and elaboration of
the finest work of that day. The courts of these four brothers were
centres of artistic production in all kinds--sculpture, metal-work,
tapestries, illuminated manuscripts and pictures, and there was a
strong spirit of rivalry among the artists to see who could make the
loveliest things, and among the patrons as to which could secure the
best artists in his service.

These four princes gave an important impulse to the production of
beautiful things in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, but it is needless
to burden you with the artists' names.

In the fourteenth century an artist was a workman who existed to do
well the work that was desired of him. He was not an independent man
with ideas of his own, who attempted to make a living by painting what
he thought beautiful, without reference to the ideas of a buyer. Of
course, if people prefer and buy good things when they see them, good
things will be likely to be made, but if those with money to spend
have no taste and buy bad things or order ugly things to be made, then
the men who had it in them to be great artists may die unnoticed, because
the beautiful things they could have made are not called for. To-day
many people spend something upon art and a few spend a great deal.
Let us hope we may not see too much of the money spent in creating
a demand for what is bad rather than for what is beautiful.

It was not unusual in the fourteenth century for a man to be at one
and the same time painter, illuminator, sculptor, metal-worker, and
designer of any object that might be called for. One of these many
gifted men, Andre Beauneveu of Valenciennes, a good sculptor and a
painter of some exquisite miniatures, is sometimes supposed to have
been the painter of our picture of Richard II. In the absence of any
signature or any definite record it is impossible to say who painted
it, but it is unnecessary to assume that it must have been painted
by a French artist, since we know that at the end of the fourteenth
century there were very good painters in England.

It was by no means an exception not to sign a picture in those days,
for the artists had not begun to think of themselves as individuals
entitled to public fame. Hand-workers of the fourteenth century mostly
belonged to a corporation or guild composed of all the other workers
at the same trade in the same town, and to this rule artists were no
exception. Each man received a recognized price for his work, and the
officers of the guild saw to it that he obtained that price and that
he worked with good and durable materials. There were certain
advantages in this, but it involved some loss of freedom in the artist,
since all had to conform to the rules of the guild. The system was
characteristic of the Middle Ages, and arose from the fact that in
those troublous times every isolated person needed protection and was
content to merge his individuality in some society in order to obtain
it. The guilds made for peace and diminished competition, so that a
guildsman may have been less tempted to hurry over or scamp his task.
The result was much honest, careful work such as you see in the original
of this picture. We are told by those who know best that there has
never been a time when the actual workmanship of the general run of
craftsmen was better than in the Middle Ages.

This picture of Richard II. has not faded or cracked or fallen off
the panel, and it seems as though we may hope it never will, for it
was well made and, what is even more important, it seems always to
have been well cared for. If only the nice things that are produced
were all well cared for, how many more of them there would be in the
world!




CHAPTER IV

THE VAN EYCKS