pursued their destinies was little calculated to develop any other than the harder and more matter-of-fact side of their nature. True, here as elsewhere, and from the earliest period of her history the great monastic institutions which dotted the country had done much for the cultivation of Art, as the remains of wood sculpture, mural paintings, and numerous illuminated manuscripts amply testify. But no great school of painting had arisen or was even possible, so true is it that the development of the artistic instincts of the community require the contemplative repose and fostering inspiration of peace. In the truest sense of the term the Flemings were not a cultured artistic race: they had certainly a high standard of taste, but their artistic sense was appreciative rather than creative—even so, a notable advance for a nation of warriors and merchants.

PLATE II.—ADORATION OF THE MAGI.

This, one of the master’s finest works, was painted in 1479 for Brother John Floreins, Master of Saint John’s Hospital, Bruges, where it may be seen.

With the succession of the House of Burgundy to the French domination an entirely new era was ushered in. If the ambition of this new line of princes was unbounded, equally so was the success which attended its pursuit; their authority increased by leaps and bounds, and soon their court had become the wealthiest and most powerful in Europe. The high notions they entertained of their own dignity brooked no compeer in the pomp and glitter of their state. The display the guild and merchant princes and foreign representatives were capable of they should outdo: the splendour of their sovereignty should blur the brilliancy of mere civic ostentation. But while they revelled in the outward show of their supremacy, they viewed with jealous eye the great wealth and large measure of liberties enjoyed by their subjects. Their needs were great, the resources of the people commensurate; and in the alternate confiscation and resale of these liberties they found a remunerative source of revenue. But if the dukes were arrogant and unscrupulous, their subjects were no cravens, and civic shrewdness often proved more than a match for ducal craft. A fine sense of humour, however, suggested the policy of keeping these lusty burghers fully diverted the while they were not being bled or chastened: hence the constant recurrence of pacifications and triumphal entries, of regal processions and gorgeous tournaments, of public banquets and bewildering revels. It was an era of pomp and pageantry unparalleled in history, the success of which required the services of the highest talents of the day—the foremost artists to enhance its magnificence, the leading writers to chronicle its marvels.

It was Duke Philip III. who requisitioned the services of John van Eyck and showered on him bounty and patronage, and if his reign had proved as uneventful as it was the reverse, Philip’s name would still survive in the reflected glory of this prince of painting. The declining days of the great duke, stricken with imbecility, certainly offered no inducement to foreign artists on the lookout for court patronage. But with his death, on the 15th of June 1467, the entire prospect was changed. Charles the Bold now succeeded to the dukedom: his solemn entry into the Flemish capital took place on Palm Sunday of the year following—an occasion marked by brilliant jousts and tournaments—and his home-coming with his bride, Margaret of York, some three months later. These events, the marriage festivities notably, called for a great array of talent, and among the leading artists engaged in planning and executing the magnificent decorations indulged in we find Peter Coustain and John Hennequart, the ducal painters; James Daret and Philip Truffin of Tournay; Francis Stoc and Livin van Lathem of Brussels; Daniel De Rycke and Hugo Van der Goes of Ghent; Govart of Antwerp; and John Du Château of Ypres. And here Hans Memlinc enters on the scene, already then a master-painter and accomplished artist, but of whom no previous record, of whose lifework no earlier trace, has been discovered.

II

EARLY DAYS AND TRAINING

AS to where and when Memlinc was born, where he served his apprenticeship, and with whom he worked as a journeyman no documentary evidence has yet been discovered, and no one can confidently assert; but there exists a sufficiency of presumptive evidence to warrant certain conclusions with the help of which to construct a working biography. It appears probable that the family came from Memelynck, near Alkmaar, in north Holland, and settled at Deutichem, in Guelderland; and, on the strength of an entry copied from the diary kept by an ecclesiastical notary and clerk of the Chapter of Saint Donatian at Bruges during the years 1491 to 1498, that they subsequently removed to the ecclesiastical principality of Mainz. The subject of this monograph is likely to have been born, at some date between 1425 and 1435, either at some place within that principality, or at Deutichem previous to his parents’ removal. From our knowledge of the guild system which obtained in the middle ages throughout the north of Europe with but slight variation in the conditions of training and apprenticeship, and taking into consideration besides the typical characteristics of Memlinc’s work, it appears probable that he served his apprenticeship at Mainz, and afterwards worked at Cöln as a journeyman, and this opinion is confirmed by the outstanding fact that in all the wealth of architectural embellishment in which his pictures abound the only town outside Bruges whose buildings are faithfully reproduced is this noted centre of art. That he should have travelled thither for the especial purpose of securing an accurate background for the first, fifth, and sixth panels of the Shrine of Saint Ursula, and not have cared to obtain as faithful settings for the incidents of the second and fourth panels ascribed to Basel, or for that of the third panel located at Rome, will scarcely stand the test of criticism. A study of these panels evidences an intimate acquaintance with the architectural beauties of Cöln, a knowledge obviously acquired at first hand during a period of his life devoted to Art. The master under whom he worked was in all probability the Suabian, Stephen Löthener, of Mersburg, near Constance, who had settled in Cöln before 1442, and died there in 1452. It is presumable that Memlinc may not have completed his studies at the time of that painter’s death. In the circumstances one can but conjecture as to where he completed the necessary training before attaining to the rank of a master-painter. Vasari and Guicciardini both assert that Memlinc was at some time or other a pupil of Roger De la Pasture (Van der Weyden), and, as this master returned from Italy in 1450, he may have come across Memlinc at Cöln and engaged him as an assistant. It is, however, quite possible that Memlinc stayed on at Cöln until Löthener’s death in 1452 and then went to Brussels, doubtless passing by Louvain and possibly working for a time under Dirk Bouts. Certain it is, judging from the many points of similarity in their work, that Memlinc came under Roger’s influence for a space sufficiently long to leave a strong impress of that master’s methods on his art. Memlinc’s contemporary, Rumwold De Doppere, has left it on record that he was “then considered to be the most skilful and excellent painter in the whole of Christendom”; and if Memlinc had left nothing to perpetuate his fame but such gems as the Shrine of Saint Ursula, at Bruges, the “Passion of Our Lord,” in the Royal Museum at Turin, that remarkable altarpiece, “Christ the Light of the World,” in the Royal Gallery at Munich, or