It has seemed to me impossible to deal with the long period covered by this volume as briefly as the scheme of the series required without leaving out a great many events and concentrating attention chiefly upon a few central facts and a few important personages. I think that the main results of the development may thus be seen, though there is much which is here omitted that would have been included had the book been written on other lines.

Some pages find place here which originally appeared in The Guardian and The Treasury, and a few lines which once formed part of an article in The Church Quarterly Review. My thanks are due for the courtesy of the Editors. I have reprinted some passages from my Church of the Sixth Century, a book which is now out of print and not likely to be reissued.

I have to thank the Rev. L. Pullan for help from his wide knowledge, and Mr. L. Strachan, of Heidelberg, of whose accuracy and learning I have had long experience, for reading the proofs and making the index.

W. H. H.

S. JOHN'S COLLEGE, OXFORD, Septuagesima, 1906.