INTRODUCTION 



do so anonymously, or by ascription to some 

 departed celebrity, who was obviously not in a 

 position to gainsay him. The writer was of 

 much less interest than his ideas and sentiments. 

 Then again there was the intense localisation of 

 life. Localities were very independent of one 

 another. Each was complete in itself, and 

 within it there was no need for self-advertisement. 

 It was the same in the wider life of associated 

 religious communities, such as Benedictines, 

 Cluniacs, and Cistercians, who had so much to 

 do with the building of abbeys and cathedrals. 

 Within a fraternity, the specially gifted craftsman 

 was known, and wherever work was going on 

 within the Order, was made use of as needs be, 

 not as Brother This, or Brother That, but simply 

 as scribe, or as artificer in Madonnas or gargoyles, 

 or whatever else was wanted. The glorification 

 of the community as a whole, and not the 

 advertisement of the individual, was the desired 

 goal. This self-effacement was not so much 

 humility, though of course that too existed, as 

 the special form which communal feeling took 

 at that time. Now if this suppression of the 

 individual was true of men, how much more 

 true must it have been of women', who seldom 

 ventured beyond town, or castle, or convent 

 walls. In truth, women hardly appear on the 



scene, and English women least of all. It is 



xiii 



