of the literature of the present and the past. They were
the librarians, the diplomats, and the courtiers of the age,
skilled in political art and the knowledge of men; even
warfare was not always foreign to their life. Finally,
and above all, they were teachers of religion. At once
the guardians of the literature and civilization of Roman
antiquity, in the time of the German invasions and early
German states, when every convent was a center of instruc-
tion in the industrial arts and every priest a mediator
between the barbarian and his helpless prey, they had
become the revered and honored masters of their age. The
wealth of their corporations and their orders was only
equaled by their charity to the poor. While the power of
the king and the baron was inherited by birth, the highest
honors of the church were open to the son of the humblest
serf. Visible and material signs and results of this power
of the church the cathedrals undoubtedly were, but the
Gothic cathedrals, especially, were undoubtedly built, in
the main, by the energy and offerings of the people at
large. There are records of the donations by women of
their jewels, and by poor people of various modest offer-
ings and small sums of money, which prove this to have
been the case.

We have been led into an account of the general causes
which contributed to the grandeur of the Gothic cathe-
drals, by insisting first on the average increase of area and
dimensions in important churches, as due to a particular
rise in power of the cities of the Middle Ages in which
France led the way. We may begin our explanation of the
style itself in structural details by showing that the pointed
arch, which is one main feature of it, was adopted on
account of this increased dimension.

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