ABSTRACT
Of first importance to the builders and patrons of Gothic art was the quality of the stained-glass windows and the colored light they created. Like other Gothic artists, the manuscript illuminators worked within architectural constraints; figures lie as clearly within the frame and on the plane of the vellum folio as do jamb figures in the architecture of the portal. Gothic art suggests the growing peace and prosperity stimulated by royal authority that reduced local warfare and brigandage, favored the growth of towns and the artisan/merchant class, and shifted intellectual leadership from rural monasteries to universities in the cities. Gothic art flourished under royal as well as ecclesiastical patronage as the Kings and Queens of France and England, and later of royalty from Castile to Bohemia, directed part of their wealth to building enterprises and the arts. The reign of King Louis IX of France coincided with the mature phase of the Gothic style in France.
