The same thing is true, of course, not only about the state of the crafts but about the status of the craftsman.

The best proof that the system of the guilds had an undeveloped good in it is that the most advanced modern men are now going back five hundred years to get the good out of it.
The best proof that a rich house was brought to ruin is that our very pioneers are now digging in the ruins to find the riches.
That the new guildsmen add a great deal that never belonged to the old guildsmen is not only a truth, but is part of the truth I maintain here.

The new guildsmen add what the old guildsmen would have added if they had not died young.
When we renew a frustrated thing we do not renew the frustration.
But if there are some things in the new that were not in the old, there were certainly some things in the old that are not yet visible in the new; such as individual humour in the handiwork.
The point here, however, is not merely that the worker worked well but that he was working better; not merely that his mind was free but that it was growing freer.

All this popular power and humour was increasing everywhere, when something touched it and it withered away.
The frost had struck it in the spring.
Some people complain that the working man of our own day does not show an individual interest in his work.

But it will be well to realise that they would be much more annoyed with him if he did.
The medieval workman took so individual an interest in his work that he would call up devils entirely on his own account, carving them in corners according to his own taste and fancy.
He would even reproduce the priests who were his patrons and make them as ugly as devils; carving anti-clerical caricatures on the very seats and stalls of the clerics.