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actually taken up with the manufacture of the required number of articles, he spent his spare hours, not in turning out more and more goods, that nobody could want, but in perfecting and ornamenting those which were already made.
It has been estimated that if a man were free from all extraneous burdens he could earn a bare living for himself and his family by about two hours work a day—one says "bare," because one leaves out of account modern machinery which, of course, in a well-ordered community would raise the general standard of living enormously without extending the hours of labour. In the Middle Ages the demands of kings, lords and what-nots undoubtedly raised this necessary number of hours to, say, five or six. But even then there was a margin of time which could not be employed in actual use-production. The consequence was that your mediæval craftsman exercised his ingenuity upon everything that passed through his hands. In William Morris's phrase: "He decorated everything, from a porridge-pot to a cathedral." His surplus time was of no value to anyone else, so he could afford to spend it in pleasing himself.
Thus it is that the Middle Ages were the only times in which there has been a great Popular Art. Popular literary work did not keep pace with popular handicraft. But that was not because the masses of the people had not the requisite faculties, but because the tools were not to hand. Printing had not yet been invented, and, above all, the knowledge of reading and writing was confined to a few. But where the people had a fair chance they took the fullest advantage of it. Think of the exquisite illuminated manuscripts, for example, that were turned out literally by the thousand from the monasteries—and the monks were almost entirely drawn from the lower orders. Go to any museum and compare one of these manuscripts with one of our machine-made products of the present day—say, the "Daily Mirror"—and, then, in the words of the poetaster:
“Seek thou the lone, sequestered vale,
And ponder o'er the gruesome tale."
But, above all, the mediæval workman spent his soul upon stone. The tools required for carving and building were not confined to the monks, but were within the reach of every man. Give Robin or Giles a chisel and a stone, and he starts (other things being equal) on level terms with any other man in any other age. And here our ancestors showed how men, when left to please
