And so they were, when they came first into this story, from their homes east of the Rhine, but they acquired, by degrees, civilisation from the Roman world which they conquered, and this particular science and art of architecture was carried to great perfection at the date to which we have brought the story now. It is almost enough, to impress upon our minds the idea of that perfection, to remember that the building of Westminster Abbey, as we see it now, was undertaken in the reign of Henry III. in the thirteenth century, and that the beautifully decorated chapel of Henry VII. attached to it was added later, as the name of the king after whom it is called, indicates. There are some traces left of Norman and still older Saxon building in the cloisters, for the original building was a monastery, established in Saxon times, of Benedictine monks. {192} In the Poets' Corner, as it is called, of the Abbey is a tablet commemorating the poet Chaucer who lived, at one time, close to the Abbey. He died in 1400 and his stories of the pilgrims travelling to the shrine of St. Thomas à Becket in Canterbury Cathedral, where he was buried, tell us very much about the manner of life of the people of that day. But, besides, Chaucer was a poet of the highest genius, and the beauties of his verse are marvellous considering the rough and troubled times in which he wrote. Most of the earlier writers had been clerics, and none approached the grace of Chaucer, a layman. But, what is perhaps more wonderful still, he had no followers, certainly none for more than a century after his death, who came near him in beauty of language or of thought. Our story does not take us as far as that great Renaissance, or new birth of learning and culture, which distinguished the sixteenth century. We must put our Chaucer, together with Dante in Italy, and a few disciples such as Petrarch and his friend Boccaccio, as forerunners, a century or more ahead, of that great revival of literature. By far the most of the Gothic building was of places for worship or for the accommodation of the clergy. Men thought--and it was a view which the Church was very ready to encourage--that they could find salvation and forgiveness for their sins if they devoted their wealth to the building of houses for religious purposes; and they also supposed that they could secure the favour of God by giving lands and property during their lifetime to the Church or by leaving it to the Church at their death. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- {193} [Illustration: GOTHIC ARCHITECTURE. Doorway of Beauvais Cathedral.] ----------------------------------------------------------------------