[Illustration: [JOHN RYLANDS LIBRARY, MANCHESTER 25. CRUCIFIXION German, tenth century]
Theophano, whose grand figure stands out against a background of incredible rudeness and turbulence, must, undoubtedly, have had considerable influence in introducing the softer Byzantine manners. Her husband, Otto II., is said to have adopted much of the Byzantine court ceremonial, and the wedding presents she brought with her, on her arrival in 972, must have formed a fund of novel design for the German craftsmen. Yet it is very easy to exaggerate her personal influence. Byzantium had always been a remarkable civilizing agent, and in the tenth to eleventh centuries was exercising the strongest influence on the West. Relations with Germany had been established long before the time of Theophano, and were continued long after. In reality Otto III. was the more special admirer and imitator of Byzantine arts and customs, this influence coming, no doubt, indirectly from his mother’s care in choosing for his masters, men of high culture. One of these men, the most trusted councillor of Theophano, was the refined and learned Greek, John of Calabria; and the other, the German, Bernward, was a most enthusiastic amateur of the arts, and on his appointment to the See of Hildesheim, helped to create the new German school which flourished all through the eleventh and twelfth centuries.
In every museum there are examples of the Byzantino-German school, one branch of which was situated in the Rhine Provinces. The relief of the Rhenish carvings is usually bold, and the figures large and long, but they often lack both the spontaneity of the Germans and the elegance of the Byzantines. A charming representation of the _Nativity_ encircled by an embattled wall, and another plaque with the _Visitation of the Magi_, in the Victoria and Albert Museum, show these features, the figures having almost the appearance of children’s toys set out at random without the slightest relation to the background. A peculiar feature in some of these carvings, is the row of dots drilled down the centre of each fold. There was also a school of direct copiers of Byzantine carvings, which varies from the most miserable caricatures to such splendidly finished work, that critics experience great difficulty in deciding for or against the Byzantine origin. A case in point is the magnificent book cover in the Vatican, which came from the Abbey of Lorsch in Germany, and the similar panel in the Victoria and Albert Museum.