Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 17.djvu/252

240 was generally the favorite one of the deceased. How poetical is the destiny of that tree receiving in its bosom the man to whom it had formerly afforded shelter and, perhaps, nourishment!

Between the sixth and the eighth centuries, owing to the increasing activity of the Church in multiplying establishments of all kinds, and to the spreading of agriculture and industry, as well as to the unceasing wars, carpentry had widely enlarged its province. Thus it is not surprising that division of labor was applied to carpentry; and bridge-makers, or "pontiffs," as they were called, after the Latin fashion, builders, joiners, ship-builders and military carpenters were recognized as distinct trades, nor could one division intrude upon the duties of the others.

Though the middle ages are generally estimated as an epoch of retrogression in art, carpentry improved. Its military department was naturally perfected by the unrelenting wars. In these an enormous number of workmen found employment. The battering-rams, the wheeled turrets, and all war-engines received further development. In the ninth century many castles were exclusively made of wood, which proved so strong as to increase the desolation of the invaded countries, for invaders set fire to those they could not take. Such was, in 886, during the siege of Paris by the Normans, the fate of the castle rising on the spot on which the "Châtelet" was afterward built. It was defended by only twelve men; yet the Normans tried again and again in vain to take it, until, tired of their useless assaults, they destroyed it by fire. Byzantine and Gothic architecture, too, becoming bolder, afforded carpentry the opportunity of acquiring an incontestable artistic value; and, if it lost somewhat of its importance in reference to the creation of the great body of a building, it gained ground in the accessories. The interiors of temples and palaces were stocked with furniture; the wooden ceilings were set into compartments of elaborate carvings; the doors divided into panels and ornaments; the cold nakedness of the kalsomined walls was concealed by panels of oak and chestnut, set off in modillions and figures in bas-relief, separated by columns supporting entwined arches. A variety of chests was manufactured; the holy-lofts of churches, as well as the halls of private and public dwellings, were furnished with benches and chairs, previously very rarely seen. All this was, then, the work of carpenters; it was not until later that wood-carvers and cabinet-makers formed a distinct branch of the trade. "Capable, as they were, of accomplishing many more things than the carpenters of our day," Paul Lacroix says, "and being at the same time geometers, constructors, and modelers, the carpenters of the middle ages must be considered rather as artists than as artisans."

About the end of the twelfth century, France having grown tired of war, the throng of pontiffs and carpenters, formerly connected with the armies of the Carlovingian kings, no longer found employment.