29 DECEMBER 1961, Page 10

SIR,—Bamber Gascoigne, in the course of advocat- log (inter alio)

that MRA should get its facts right, makes the remarkable statement (p. 849), apropos the Middle Ages: 'it was a period when all art, with the exception of architecture, was at a par- ticuarly low ebb.'

Even if Mr. Gascoigne excludes 'literature from his definition of art, can he deny the artistic ex- cellence of, for instance, the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, or, at the other end of the Middle Ages, the Rohan Book of Hours?

Though, like Mr. Gascoigne, 1 dislike the casuistry and intolerance of MRA, I prefer not to base my arguments on such dubious foundations