Page:Of Six Mediaeval Women (1913).djvu/246

 to the sanctuary, so making it, as it were, the "open sesame" to higher things.

In Books of Hours and illuminated MSS., before the complete border of flowers, birds, and small grotesques was developed, we find ornamental flourishes, like the growth of ivy and hawthorn, splendidly free in design, and painted with evident joy even in the minutest bud or tendril. Everywhere may this love of Nature striving for expression be seen. But we must turn to the poems and romances if we would fully realise it in all its simplicity and truth, since it is in these alone that we get at the actual mediæval feeling unalloyed with all that we ourselves have, perhaps unwittingly, read into it.

"All hearts are uplifted and made glad in the time of April and May, when once again the meadows and the pastures become green." So says one of the old romancers. And this joy in returning spring seems to have pervaded mediæval thought and expression. Little is this to be wondered at when we call to mind the long dreary winters spent in cold and ill-lit castles, or in dark, draughty houses and hovels. Before glass, long regarded as a luxury, came into general use in dwellings, the only protection from rain and cold consisted in wooden shutters, or movable frames with horn slabs (necessarily small), or varnished parchment. In truth, the only warm, bright place was the chimney corner, and here, as near as might be to the