The Celtic style was thus established through the north of England, and thence it spread to the southern parts of the country. But, for the moment, the account of its further development in Britain must be suspended in order to resume the thread of the story of the later classical influence on the illumination of MSS. of the Frankish empire. Under Charlemagne, who became emperor of the West in the year 800, art revived in many branches, and particularly in that of the writing and the illumination of MSS. During the reigns of this monarch and his immediate successors was produced a series of magnificent volumes, mostly biblical and liturgical, made resplendent by a lavish use of gold. The character of the decoration runs still, as of old, in the two lines of illustration and of pure ornament. We find a certain amount of general illustration, usually of the biblical narrative, in pictorial scenes drawn in freehand in the later classical style, and undoubtedly inspired by the western art of Rome. But those illustrations are small in number compared with the numerous examples of pure ornament. Such ornament was employed in the tables of the Eusebian canons, in the accessories of the traditional pictures of the evangelists, in the full-page designs which introduced the opening words of the several books of Bibles or Gospels, in the large initial letters profusely scattered through the volumes, in the infinite variety of borders which, in some MSS., adorned page after page. In all this ornament the debased classical element is prominently in evidence, columns and arches of variegated marbles, and leaf mouldings and other architectural details are borrowed from the Roman basilicas, to serve as decorations for text and miniature. The conventional portrait-figures of the evangelists are modelled on the Byzantine pattern, but with differences which appear to indicate an intervening influence, such as would be exercised on the eastern art by its transmission through Italy. Such figures, which indeed become, in course of time, so formal as almost to be decorative details along with their settings, grew stereotyped and passed on monotonously from artist to artist, always subject to deterioration, and were perpetuated especially in MSS. of German origin down to the 11th and 12th centuries. [Illustration: PLATE II. PSALTER OF WESTMINSTER ABBEY.--LATE TWELFTH CENTURY. (British Museum. _Royal MS._ 2A. xxii.)] [Illustration: PLATE III. LECTIONARY, OF THE USE OF PARIS. LATE THIRTEENTH CENTURY. (British Museum. Add. M.S. 17,341.)]