Page:The history of medieval Europe.djvu/468

 4 i8 THE HISTORY OF MEDIEVAL EUROPE But the world since the Middle Ages not only has pro- duced no original edifices to compare with the creations of the medieval architects ; it seldom even makes a good copy of a Gothic church; and to reproduce entire one of those vaulted cathedrals with all its wonderful detail would to-day involve great difficulty and expense. For one thing, not enough workmen with sufficient artistic ability could be secured without paying exorbitant wages. We have more money and machinery to-day than they had then, but there are things which money cannot buy. The inventive brains and deft fingers that fitted and fashioned the stones of the medieval minsters are working to-day in laboratories and clinics, and serving science instead of religion. Finally, most modern buildings are finished in a few years at most, and often do not last much longer. On the other hand, we must remember that many cathedrals as we see them to-day represent in their various parts the work of several genera- tions or even centuries. But we only marvel the more at the hold which this form of art had upon the men of the past, and at the way in which they kept at it. They might well take their time in their constructions or add new ornament to the ancient edifice, for they were building for eternity. Strictly speaking, a cathedral is the church of a bishop, but in this chapter we shall use the word to refer to any great Meaning of medieval church edifice, whether the abbey of f, he word some large monastery or a collegiate church in a large town and so served by a number of secular canons or other clergy. Many of the most important early Romanesque churches were monastic; it was only as the towns fully developed that the bishops residing in them were able to afford great churches ; and even at a later date other churches might be built in the towns which rivaled the cathedrals proper in size and beauty. To the architecture of the eleventh and twelfth centuries is given the name " Romanesque" or "Romanic," because The Roman- of its having developed out of the building of the esque period R oman Empire, just as many languages of the Middle Ages are called "Romance" languages because of