_The Monastic Scribes._ It may be interesting to consider what were the causes that made the illuminated manuscripts of the mediaeval period among the most perfect and beautiful works of art that the world has ever produced. No one can examine the manuscripts of any of the chief European countries down to the fourteenth century without a feeling of amazement at their almost unvarying perfection of execution, the immense fertility of fancy in their design, and the utterly unsparing labour that was lavished on their production. Moreover the manuscripts of this earlier period, before their production became a commercial art in the hand of secular scribes, are especially remarkable for their uniform excellence of workmanship, and their complete freedom from any signs of haste or weariness on the part of their scribes and illuminators. _Conditions of life._ _Absence of hurry._ Now the fact is that the countless illuminated manuscripts which were produced in so many of the Benedictine and other monastic Houses of Europe were executed under very exceptionally favourable circumstances[207]. In the first place the monastic scribe lived in a haven of safety and rest in the middle of a tumultuous and war-harassed world. While at work in the _scriptorium_ he was troubled with no thoughts of any necessity to complete his task within a limited time in order to earn his daily bread. Food and clothing of a simple though sufficient kind were secured to him, whether he finished his manuscript in a year or in twenty years. He worked for no payment, but for the glory of God and the honour of his monastic foundation, and last, but not least, for the intense pleasure which the varying processes of his work gave him. _Pleasant work._ No one who examines a fine mediaeval manuscript can help seeing in it the strongest marks of the delight which the illuminator had in his work; and this sort of retrospective sympathy with the pleasure of the workman in his work is an important element in the beauty of ancient works of art of many different kinds and dates, from the simple but beautiful wheel-turned vase of the Greek potter, down to the carved foliage in a Gothic church, or the complicated ornamentation of an illuminated initial. _Relief from monotony._ Again, it should be remembered that the life of a mediaeval monk was a very uneventful and monotonous one, and even the most pious soul must at times have felt a weariness in the oft-repeated and lengthy _Offices_ which made him spend so large a proportion of each day within the Choir of his monastic church. Thus it was that his work as an illuminator of manuscripts provided the one great relief from his otherwise grey and monotonous life, from which he turned to revel in every variety of fanciful shape and of varied arrangement of gleaming gold and brilliant pigments. Here at least was no monotony, but the fullest scope for imaginative fancy and the love of variety which is inborn in the human mind.