Page:Archaeological Journal, Volume 3.djvu/324

294 were both influenced by different feelings than what guide them at present, and their condition also was dissimilar. At that earlier time, it is true, they were personally more indigent, especially the parish priests, but they had fewer wants, necessarily fewer from the vow under which many of them lived; they were also more zealous and skilful in carrying on the architectural works that surrounded them; they lived moreover amongst those who were animated by kindred feelings, amongst brethren, equally enthusiastic and self-denying, who sympathized and helped in the labour; thus, whilst it constituted a part of their duty, as it were, it became one of their recreations to decorate the religious house where they worshipped; and this again caused them to infuse the same ardour and the same taste at once into their superiors and their dependants.

The materials that were wanting for the purpose were usually at hand, and cost them little; the stone and the marble and the wood were easily wrought by their own tenants, whose unremitted toil they could always command; or when wages were paid they were extremely low, an opinion which is not to be negatived by urging that human wants must always keep pace with human demands and expectations, and that the difference in this respect between different periods is merely in terms of money. For after all the fact is not true; the wants of these men were the wants of nature, less artificial than those of the same class at present: their fare was coarser and simpler, beans supplied the place of wheaten food, their beverage was less stimulating and expensive, and their general habits of life were disproportionably cheaper than those of a modern artizan; added to which, these poor men believed themselves, whilst occupied in such works, to be serving the cause of God and religion, and therefore they submitted to privations and toil with patience and even joy.

The persevering spirit of the priesthood was another reason. They were satisfied to begin a great work, and content to leave the merit and the fame of accomplishing it to their successors. This unselfish and unambitious spirit will at once account for its durability. Theirs was an uniform aim directed to the same object by several in succession, and all of them