that brought about the decisive influence on the arts. The dukes of Burgundy, in their unrestrained passion for display and magnificence, were able to gratify it through the vast wealth which the possession of the richest industrial towns of Flanders afforded them. The two courts combined formed a centre of splendour and extravagance. The sovereigns surrounded themselves with luxuries, and gathered together an army of workers, painters, sculptors, goldsmiths, and retainers of all kinds who flocked to them, from the French provinces still held by England, to assist in the adornment of their numberless palaces and castles. Two streams of art met at Dijon, the French capital of the duchy. It was a time when Flanders had become the principal centre of art in Europe, when Van Eyck, Rogier Van der Weyden, and their schools were the teachers and directors, not only in painting proper but, to a very great extent, in all the arts, and in an especial manner in that of wood-carving. From Brussels, Antwerp, Tournay, Bruges, Ypres, Ghent, or Liége, craftsmen came in swarms, or followed the court as they moved between the two great capitals.

It was at Dijon that Philip built the Chartreuse of Champmol, and for its church were made in 1391 two great retables, notable landmarks in the history of wood sculpture. These were the work of the Flemish artists Jacques de Baerze and Melchior Broederlam. There, too, are the magnificent sedilia for priest, deacon, and subdeacon, made by Hennequin of Liége. These are but a few examples of the wood-carvers' skill at the Chartreuse, where the art itself had established a school of no inferior importance amongst the other schools of sculpture. Of the sculptors, if precise information is lacking concerning the parts played by each in divers works, we know the names at least of the leaders-Jean de Marville and his nephew and successor, Nicolas or Claus Sluter, the architect of the famous tomb of the founder,

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