People are so apt to look upon religion as
the business of the clergy, not their own, that the moment they hear
of anything depending on "religion," they think it must also have
depended on the priesthood; and I have had to take what place was to
be occupied between these two errors, and fight both, often with
seeming contradiction. Good architecture is the work of good and
believing men; therefore, you say, at least some people say, "Good
architecture must essentially have been the work of the clergy, not of
the laity." No--a thousand times no; good architecture[211] has always
been the work of the commonalty, _not_ of the clergy. "What," you say,
"those glorious cathedrals--the pride of Europe--did their builders
not form Gothic architecture?" No; they corrupted Gothic architecture.
Gothic was formed in the baron's castle, and the burgher's street. It
was formed by the thoughts, and hands, and powers of labouring
citizens and warrior kings. By the monk it was used as an instrument
for the aid of his superstition; when that superstition became a
beautiful madness, and the best hearts of Europe vainly dreamed and
pined in the cloister, and vainly raged and perished in the
crusade,--through that fury of perverted faith and wasted war, the
Gothic rose also to its loveliest, most fantastic, and, finally, most
foolish dreams; and in those dreams, was lost.
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