If the Victorians discovered the original polychromy of ancient Greek temples with a certain sense of unease, they imagined with greater serenity the colours of a medieval “Merry England” which broke away from the sombre world of the Gothic novel. The Middle Ages were a source of great fascination, and the colours of this period are everywhere to be found in the poetry, essays and creations of William Morris (1834-1896) who was eager to distance himself from his own dark age by emulating the Gothic “school of colour” celebrated by John Ruskin. Beyond these aesthetic considerations, what is also at stake in Morris’s “reminiscent” use of colour is a total reappraisal of the social, religious and political model which had up until then been associated with the Middle Ages.