Flitch of bacon custom the Plowman", In the present passage we have the earliest known allusion to the singular custom known as that of "the Dunmow flitch of Bacon." The custom was—"that if any pair could, after a twelvemonth of matrimony, come forward, and make oath at Dunmow [co. Essex] that, during the whole time, they had never had a quarrel, never regretted their marriage, and, if again open to an engagement, would make exactly that they had made, they should be rewarded with a flitch of Bacon." It is referred to in Chaucer (1343–1400) in a way that makes clear the reference would
What is a Masterpiece? confluence of memories and emotions forming a single idea", that it has "a power of recreating traditional forms so that they become expressive of an artist's own epoch and yet keep a relationship to the past". The highest masterpieces are said to be "illustrations of great themes." Clark also implicitly excluded the erotic from considerations of what constituted a masterpiece, based on his perspective that a necessary condition is the balance between sense and form (works that are too sensual are, therefore, unbalanced and not to be categorised at masterpiece level). What is a Masterpiece? What is a Masterpiece? is