ABSTRACT
Throughout the middle ages the Church, with its inspiring beliefs, its organization and unifying power was the great life force of artistic achievement. Byzantine art began practically with the founding of Constantinople in the fourth century. The artists, craftsmen and architects of the Middle Ages until the thirteenth century and even later, were mostly clerics or laymen closely connected with the Church. The Lombard stonecutters and masons had early gained reputations for their skill and they were then imported in large numbers by the building abbots and bishops of France and Germany. Romanesque art, except for Italy, was largely monastic. The great Gothic cathedrals of the thirteenth century were the creations of the towns and the bishops. Medieval painting was expressed in altar pieces, reliquaries, illuminations and some portraits and miniatures. The music of the troubadours and trouveres developed during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries.
