There is yet another of the conditions under which the monastic scribe worked which was not without important effect on the unvarying excellence of his work, and that was that he could never remain long enough at work, at any one time, for his hand or eye to get wearied. Owing to the constantly recurring Choir services, the _Seven Hours_, which he had to attend, the monastic scribe could probably never continue labouring at his illumination for more than about two hours at a time. _No weariness._ The importance of this fact is very clearly seen when we compare one of the earlier monastic manuscripts with one of the fifteenth century French or Flemish _Books of Hours_, executed by a professional secular scribe. Thus in the older manuscripts the firmness of line and delicate, crisp touch never relaxes, and the artist's evident sense of power and the joy in his manual dexterity lasts without diminution from the first to the last page of his book. _Variety of labour._ Additional beauty is given to the mediaeval manuscripts by the fact that each scribe commonly did much important work in the preparation of his inks and pigments; in some cases even to the beating out of the gold leaf he was about to use in his miniatures and borders[211]. No colours bought of a dealer in a commercial age could ever equal in beauty or in durability the pigments that an illuminator made or at least prepared for his own use. And his command over the materials of his art would greatly enhance his pleasure in using them, to say nothing of the relief given by the variety of his labours. _Varied schemes of ornament._ All these influences, combined with others which it might be wearisome to dwell upon, combined to make the manuscripts of the pre-commercial period works of the most unvarying perfection of technique, unspeakably rich in the varied wealth of fancy shown in their decorative schemes, as well as in the minute detail of each part. The illuminated ornament in one place is concentrated into a gem-like miniature within the narrow limit of a small initial letter. At another place it spreads out into the splendour of a full-page picture, which swallows up most of the text, and covers the whole page with one mass of burnished gold and brilliant colour. Or again, springing from its roots in an illuminated capital, it grows over the margin and frames the text with a mass of richly designed and exquisitely graceful foliage. Every possible scheme of decoration is to be found in these manuscripts; but in all cases the illuminator is careful to make his painted ornament grow out of and form, as it were, an integral part of the written text, which thus becomes not merely a book ornamented with pictures, but is a close combination of writing and illumination, forming one harmonious whole in a united scheme of decorative beauty[212]. _Monastic Scriptoria._