Python script to generate static site?

[Fred]

Hi,

I'm sure there are a bunch of them, but googling just returned
full-fledged CMS that require a DBMS and generate dynamic pages.

I'd just like a script that would 
1. look in a directory for articles in raw HTML,
2. generate a cooked output for each page (ie. add header and footer,
CSS link in HEAD, etc.),
3. regenerate the homepage with "Last modified" bit following each
article's title,
4. ready to be uploaded by FTP to a web server that only handles
static web pages.

Considering Python's wealth of libraries, it's most likely only a
couple hours' work, but since I'm pretty much a Python newbie...

Thank you
Fred.