MAHAUT, COUNTESS OF ARTOIS
the fourteenth century, Books of Hours, instead of the Psalter alone as had hitherto been customary, came into general use in private devotion. This created a fresh want, and at the same time supplied a number of new subjects in which the artist could reveal his skill. Arras was one of the chief centres of this new movement, a movement which Mahaut continued and stimulated. She employed artists to illuminate both sacred and secular works for her own use as well as for gifts—gifts counted beyond compare and beside which even precious stones were deemed of less worth. To Mahaut this desire for beauty was a very lode-star. To glance at a list of the gold- and silver-smiths' work—the jewelled and enamelled chaplets of gold, the jewelled girdles, and buckles, and braids for the hair, and the cups, some of silver with crystal covers or wrought with enamel and precious stones, and others of jasper mounted with silver work—reads like a fantasy of hidden treasure in some fairy tale. Even her chess-boards—and she was a devotee of the game—were of silver or ivory, and one, we read, was of jasper and chalcedony mounted with silver and gems, the chess-men being of jasper and crystal.
For the younger folk about her there was tennis, and also games of hazard with forfeits of girdles and coifs to the ladies. In the Castle garden were certain mechanical contrivances which, by their sudden and unexpected action,
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