It would, however, be misleading to suggest that, because many pilgrims
worked for the love of God, all the workers were unpaid. We hear of
occasions when money failed and
‘Ne porent pas païer assez
Li mestre de l’œuvre aus ouvriers.’[59]
Such things as the Jubé, the porches and the rose windows, executed
after elaborate consultations and under the supervision of the ‘master
of work,’ were inspected again by a clever master from another country.
The chief workers were lodged in houses of the cloister belonging to the
Chapter, who granted them doles from time to time and furnished them
yearly with gloves and a mantle.
The _naïveté_ of the mediæval artists is one of their chief charms, but
there is often a spice of wickedness in their work. Read the _fabliaux_
and mysteries of the time, from the Bible of Guyot de Provins to the
play acted on the Piazza of Troyes in 1475, and you will find passages
enough that offend the taste and are worthy of the actors in the Feast
of Fools. The satire of the _Trouvères_, whether they are scourging
monks, barons or sovereign pontiffs, is often extremely gross.
Similarly, while the Count of Chartres was chanting in chivalrous
fashion the praises of his lady, the porches of the Cathedral were
receiving into their niches here and there the representations of
certain ugly vices and their punishment, such as Dante ere long was to
translate into the harmonious verses of his _Divina Commedia_. Fallen
nuns and erring queens are delivered over to grinning demons, and Satan
rubs his hands at the sight of his innumerable victims (south porch). S.
Augustin might protest against the apocryphal Scriptures, and Popes
denounce the legendary poetry of the early centuries, but painters
persisted in depicting with excessive freedom the histories of S. Thomas
and S. James, and sculptors still waxed wanton when they carved the sins
of the Prodigal Son. S. Bernard, the enigma of his age, was constrained
to cry out against the grotesque ornamentation of the churches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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