h exteriors, and, indeed, upon the
interiors of edifices, were far less lavish than on the Continent; but
in Wells Cathedral, completed before 1250, there is a wealth of
sculpture for an English church of this date, and from this time forward
the plastic arts were of great importance in Great Britain.

With the beginning of the fourteenth century there were great changes in
the religious and political affairs of all Europe. The Pope no longer
held the supreme authority that had belonged to his office, and the
imperial power was also much shaken. We cannot speak of these subjects
in detail here, but the result to art of these changes was seen in a
development of individualism, and the effects of it did not show an
improvement when considered as a whole, though it has some new features
which were attractive.

In these days of which we now speak the word citizen had a far deeper
meaning than ever before, and the growth of wealth and prosperity in the
citizen classes gave a new impulse to all the activities of life, and to
art along with others.

This new life and spirit gave more freedom to artists, and they
attempted new effects, so that a far greater variety was made in their
works. The statue of the Madonna, for example, was so often repeated
that it afforded an opportunity for all sorts of experiments, by which
the sculptors tried to add to the deep feeling and the devotion that had
already been expressed in the representations of the sweet Mother of
Christ. But just here they failed; the new era brought more realism,
more likeness to nature, more freedom to the artist to put something of
himself into his work; but much of the deep thought and the devout
feeling of the thirteenth century was lost, and it cannot be said that
art was elevated in its tone.

There were influences, too, in the new state of society which permitted
details to be introduced into religious subjects which were far from
suitable or devotional; sometimes they were even comic in their effects.
For example, such scenes as allowed the representation of evil spirits
or devils were made to serve for all sorts of coarse, grotesque, and
burlesque side-play, and the little figures which represented these
powers were made to do all kinds of ridiculous capers side by side with
such serious subjects as the Last Judgment or the death scenes of
eminent men. This makes us feel, when we study the fourteenth century,
that the sculpture of the Middle Ages reac