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CH. xx] FRANCE PROVENCE 71and such-like portable articles, of which a vastfound their way alongquantity Byzantinethe line of commerce westward.It was therefore from these that the infant schools ofFrance probably derived inspiration.A still more fertilesource was found in Byzantine paintings, where figureswere introduced without reserve ;and in illuminations ofmanuscripts, and actual pictures,in which the Greeksexcelled the westerns as much as they fell behind themin the plasticart.Figures too were largely employed inthe embroideries and woven stuffs from Eastern looms;which were rich also in geometrical and floral patterns,that were freely copied in the conventional ornamentsof all the western schools, includingthose of Britain.Lastly the Crusades of the i ith and 1 2th centuries openeda wider communication between west and east; Europeanwere established at Antioch and Edessa andprincipalitiesfinally at Jerusalem itself, with which constant intercoursewould be maintained, and regular commercial relationsestablished; and we have already noticed the normaltrade between Venice and the south and west of Francewhich furnished another link with the Eastern world.It mav be asked why in a country abounding in fine Byzantinet rr+ 1 j i~ Ji J'Jart hieraticstatuary, as Provence and Toulouse undoubtedly did inthe i ith and i2th centuries, inspiration should be soughtin Byzantine art which repudiated sculpture on a largescale and offered no direct models for imitation, rather thanin the classic art near at hand. But imitation of the conventionalfigures of ivories and tissues wasByzantinemuch easier than that of the Venus of Aries; andRoman art was regarded as Pagan, and that of Byzantiumwas religious hieratic, and its very stiffness and conventionwould recommend it to the clergy, regular orsecular,in whose hands the arts at that time were