PREFACE
It was many years ago, when I used to discuss early English history with Mr. Freeman (with whom I had more than one sharp polemic), that I formed the intention of sometime trying to analyse its early sources and to unriddle its difficulties and obscurities in greater accordance with modern scientific methods than do some popular guides. It is indeed rather scandalous that in this particular period of our national story we should be so far behind both the Germans and French in our methods of writing history, and should still present so much matter for criticism in our books on the subject.
The first thing which struck me was, that if the work was to be done with any lasting profit we must begin by exploring our early ecclesiastical history more minutely and thoroughly before facing the problem of its civil and secular side. The first people who wrote our annals, drew up our charters, and composed our memorials on stone, were priests and monks and nuns. To them almost alone was the art of writing known, and they used it to tell the story of their Church, to defend its dogmatic position, to set out its ritual, to record the lives and deaths of its saints and its devoted officers, to secure good titles to their lands, and
ix
