Many of the designs used on these objects were quaint and even grotesque, while the drawing of the figures and the arrangement of the subjects is often done in the crudest and most inartistic manner. Vessels for church use were made in the shapes of griffins, dragons, cranes, lions, and other curious birds and beasts, while the human faces represented sometimes had enamelled or jewelled eye balls. In one case the eyes of the Saviour were made of large carbuncles; you can understand that this would give an expression quite the opposite of that gentleness and peace which we look for in the face of the Redeemer. In truth, there is so much of the grotesque and even barbarous element in many of these works, that we can but ridicule while we recognize the industry and care which was expended upon them. It is also difficult to understand how the feeling for art and the practice of it which had attained to such perfection among the ancients could have died out of the world so completely, for in these mediæval days it existed nowhere on the face of the earth.
About the beginning of the eleventh century bronze casting came to hold an important place in the art of Germany, and as architecture now received more attention, and bronze gates, and occasionally bronze figures of bishops and other church dignitaries, were used for the decoration of church buildings, we may say that bronze works made the medium through which sculpture in connection with architecture was again brought into use. At Hildesheim there is still a bronze gate at the principal entrance to the cathedral, which was cast in 1015, and in various places in Germany, France, and Northern Italy works of this kind are seen which belong to the eleventh century, while a bit of stone or wood sculpture of this period is very rarely met.
The twelfth century brought about a great change in sculpture and its uses. This century was a period of remarkable activity in every department of human life. The Crusades were then preached, and armies of zealous Christians went forth to redeem Jerusalem from the power of the Pagans; in this century all the institutions of chivalry flourished; the nations of the world had more intercourse with each other than had before existed; commerce was extended into new channels; men were more individual and thought more independently for themselves than they had done hitherto; and, in short, human intellect all over the Western world seemed to be awakening from a long, deep sleep, and to be inspired with strength and activity.