8 THE HISTORY OE THE ORDER OF [book i.

hound following him. But such diversions wereexclusively for the nobles. There was little or notrade, nor could the people, even the few who hadscraped together a little cash through some chance,increase it by lending, though interest on moneywas at forty or sixty per cent., for usury wasadjudged exclusively to the Jews, or Lombards.No glazed windows, no books, no paintings in eventhe houses of gentlemen; for although the abbeyof St. Denis had windows, both glazed and painted,much earlier, yet glass is said not to have beenemployed in the best French mansions before thefourteenth century. So it may well be imaginedthat the cottages were wretched, and undoubtedlyno domestic architecture in France was better thanin England, where it was execrably bad. And Ilay stress upon it the rather, that I am quite oftheir opinion who hold, that architecture, morethan any other of the fine arts, characterisesits age.

A grievous misfortune to the French was thefeudal army. Better, when soldiers were hired;but these mercenary solidarj were later; at leastthe first instance I find in Ilallam is in 1030, andthen it was a small corps. That St. Germains hadthe pointed arch in 1014, only shows that pilgrimswere frequent from France to Palestine even then;