The conditions of medieval authorship were in one important I particular far less radically different from modern conditions than were those of the artist's life. We have seen how those enormous buildings needed strict discipline and co-operation: how the task strained every nerve, and therefore there was something of the same emphasis upon realities as in warfare. Again, the privations were shared by all alike; even the mastermason was only a craftsman with the wages of a modern mechanic; and, lastly, we have seen that the fame was rather collective than individual. When we read in a chronicle that such and such an abbot “made” a magnificent missal or pulpit or altar-piece, that simply means that the abbot ordered and paid, and that the men who actually did the work received little or nothing beyond the common artisan's wages. The whole, therefore, was a great lesson in collectivism. It was William Morris's study of medieval architecture which helped to make a socialist of him.

In literature, on the other hand, there was as much individualism as the theories of Church and State permitted anywhere. It is true that there was then, as there is in every day, a certain tyranny of custom; the troubadours and the minnesänger followed certain conventions, many of which seem artificial to us. But this was only an exaggeration of what we see even in modern times.