After the Black Death, an awful plague that swept through Europe in 1349, a large part of the land of England was given up to sheep grazing, because the population had diminished, and it took fewer people to look after sheep than it did to till the soil.  Although this had been an evil in the beginning, it became afterwards a benefit, for English wool was sold at an excellent price to the merchants of Flanders, who worked it up into cloth, and in their turn sold that all over Europe with big profits.  The larger merchants who regulated the wool traffic were prosperous, and so too the landowners and princes whose property thus increased in value.  The four sons of King John became very wealthy men.  Philip the Bold, Duke of Burgundy, by marrying the heiress of the Count of Flanders acquired the Flemish territory and the wealth obtained from the wool trade and manufacture there.  Berry and Anjou were great provinces in France yielding a large revenue to their two Dukes.  Each of these princes employed several artists to illuminate books for him in the most splendid way; they built magnificent chateaux, and had tapestries and paintings made to decorate their walls.  They employed many sculptors and goldsmiths, and all gave each other as presents works of art executed by their favourite artists.  In the British Museum there is a splendid gold and enamel cup that John, Duke of Berry, caused to be made for his brother King Charles V.; to see it would give you a good idea of the costliness and elaboration of the finest work of that day.  The courts of these four brothers were centres of artistic production in all kinds—­sculpture, metal-work, tapestries, illuminated manuscripts and pictures, and there was a strong spirit of rivalry among the artists to see who could make the loveliest things, and among the patrons as to which could secure the best artists in his service.

These four princes gave an important impulse to the production of beautiful things in France, Burgundy, and Flanders, but it is needless to burden you with the artists’ names.

In the fourteenth century an artist was a workman who existed to do well the work that was desired of him.  He was not an independent man with ideas of his own, who attempted to make a living by painting what he thought beautiful, without reference to the ideas of a buyer.  Of course, if people prefer and buy good things when they see them, good things will be likely to be made, but if those with money to spend have no taste and buy bad things or order ugly things to be made, then the men who had it in them to be great artists may die unnoticed, because the beautiful things they could have made are not called for.  To-day many people spend something upon art and a few spend a great deal.  Let us hope we may not see too much of the money spent in creating a demand for what is bad rather than for what is beautiful.