[31] For more about them, see Cahier, _Mélanges d'Archéologie, etc._ [32] Not to mention _theories_, which are endless. BOOK II CHAPTER I THE GOLDEN AGE OF ILLUMINATION The Gothic spirit--A "Zeitgeist" not the invention of a single artist nor of a single country--The thirteenth century the beginning of the new style--Contrast between North and South, between East and West, marked in the character of artistic leaf-work--Gradual development of Gothic foliage--The bud of the thirteenth century, the leaf of the fourteenth, and the flower of the fifteenth--The Freemasons--Illumination transferred from the monastery to the lay workshop--The Psalter of St. Louis--Characteristics of French Gothic illumination--Rise of the miniature as a distinct feature--Guilds--Lay artists. We have now reached the parting of the ways. The study of Nature is fast superseding the dogmas of the monastic code, and what some writers have characterised as the hieratic is giving way to the naturalistic treatment of art. Like the pointed architecture itself, it is an outcome of the spirit of the age. Exactly when it begins we cannot say. As in the physical sciences, our limits are necessarily somewhat arbitrary to suit our convenience in classification. We take the beginning of the thirteenth century as a convenient dividing line between old and new. We accept it as the boundary between the artistic sway of the East and South--and that of the West and North--between the lifeless fetters of prescription and the living freedom of invention. The contrast between the two is very strongly marked. The soft and curling foliages of the sunny South are for a season giving way to the hard and thorny leafage of the wintry North. It would seem as if pointed architecture began with the hard and frozen winter of its existence, and if it had been the plan or design of one individual we might have accepted this peculiarity as part of the scheme, and all that followed as a natural consequence and development. But it is curious that as a system worked out by many minds pointed architecture should thus begin. First come thorns and cusps and lanceolate forms without foliage. Then, not perfect leaves, but buds. In due time the bud opens, at first into the profile coil, and by-and-by into the full-spread leaf. Then comes the flower, and finally the fruit. After that, rottenness and decay. It is curious that this should actually take place through a course of centuries. That it should be reflected in book illumination is simply the usual order of things--the fact has been frequently observed, and as it is curious, we call attention to it. But, as we have said, the great change itself was brought about by the influence of lay artists, and chiefly by the freemasons.