common are the Aristotles, the _Sentences_,
the _Summae_, 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.

Before we pass to the next century a word must be devoted to a not
unimportant class of books which seem to have been manufactured chiefly
in Picardy and Artois, the illustrated Romances--_e.g._ the Grail and
Lancelot--of great bulk, usually in prose, which served to pass the
winter evenings of persons of quality. A few of these, and a book of
devotions to take to church (oftenest a Psalter at this time; later on a
book of Hours), were the staple books owned by the upper classes.

_Fourteenth Century._--If the thirteenth century gives us on the whole
the noblest books, the early part of the fourteenth affords the
loveliest. They come from England, France, and the Netherlands. A