The purpose of this study is to situate the architecture and related arts of medieval France and England within the structural context of feudal society, as the "natural" economy of the early Middle Ages gave way to one in which exchange and commodity production played a major part. The conceptual framework represents a synthesis of certain elements of Marxian and Weberian theory with Becker's "art as collective action" perspective. The data are drawn from various (mainly secondary) historical and art-historical sources.;Treating artistic creation as a form of labor involving the collective action of diversified networks of collaborators, the study focusses on the respective social positions and roles of the producers of Romanesque and Gothic church art and their patrons. The forces and relations of production characteristic of feudal society, together with such extra-economic factors as the distribution of political and ecclesiastical authority and the religious and intellectual concerns of their possessors, are seen to have profoundly influenced the development of medieval art. The technical and stylistic dynamism of that art, however, is found to have followed not from changes in such macrosocial factors alone, but also from the actively innovative orientation of the medieval artist himself.;While art and craft were more closely associated in the Middle Ages than they have since become, the master mason in particular enjoyed greater creative autonomy and status than the majority of artisans, including those who served as his "support personnel." Not at all the "simple" craftsman or passively traditionalistic instrument of aristocratic patrons he is sometimes alleged to have been, the medieval architect stands out as a truly creative artist, anxious not only to improve the technical means of his work but also to participate, through it, in the most sophisticated discourse of his time. Even so, he had no choice--given the prevailing relations of artistic production--but to pursue his ends within the framework of opportunities and constraints presented by his patrons as their interests changed over time. Theirs, ultimately, was the power to accept or reject the innovations introduced by the artists they employed.
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