_Thirteenth Century._--This is commonly regarded as the greatest of all in medieval history; and truly, when we think of achievements such as Westminster, Amiens, and Chartres, and of men such as St. Louis, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis, Dante, Edward I., Roger Bacon, we must agree that the popular estimate is sound. Certainly we see in France and in England the fine flower of art in buildings and in books. Paris is still the centre. The "Gothic" spirit is concentrated there. The book trade is enormous. It is passing--under the influence of the University, most likely--out of the hands of the monastic scribes into those of the professional "stationers"; while great individual artists, such as Honoré, arise to provide for Royal and noble persons examples of art which stand as high to-day as when they were first produced. It is now that we find a large multiplication of textbooks. If the twelfth century was the age of great Bibles, the thirteenth is the age of small ones. Thousands of these exist, written with amazing minuteness and uniformity. Only less common are the Aristotles, the _Sentences_, the _Summæ_, and the other works of the golden age of scholasticism. The Orders of Friars, Franciscan and Dominican, form libraries--partly of duplicates procured from older foundations, partly of new copies to which they were helped by charitable friends. Towards the end of the century Italy comes forward as the great purveyor of books of a special sort. The University of Bologna becomes the great law school of Europe, and exports in numbers copies of the immense texts and commentaries of and upon the Church (Canon) and Roman (Civil) law which were indispensable to the unfortunate student. These books become common at the end of the thirteenth century, and run over well into the fourteenth. They are prettily (but often very carelessly) written in a round Gothic hand, sometimes christened "Bolognese." Some were not only written but decorated (with poorish ornament) on the spot, but very many were exported in sheets and provided, in France or England, with such decoration as the purchaser could afford. A leading example is a copy of the Decretals in the British Museum (Royal 10, E. iv.) which belonged to St. Bartholomew's, Smithfield. It is in Italian script, but on each of the spacious lower margins of its many pages is a picture by an English artist; these pictures run in sets, illustrating Bible stories, legends, and romances. As the centuries go on, the material they have left increases in bulk, and the complication of the threads is proportionately greater. I cannot hope in a survey like this to give prominence to every factor; but we shall not be wrong in fixing upon Northern France and England as the areas of greatest productiveness and the sources of the best art in the thirteenth century.