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have seriously damaged the value of the book. It is well known that translations even from modern languages are beset with great difficulties. Translations of mediæval Latin documents, we may freely say, are bristling with almost insuperable difficulties. The men who then drew up historic documents were using a language which was not theirs, which they did not know perfectly, and which they altered in meaning and construction in the most arbitrary manner. The most ordinary terms, such as terra, dominus, colonus, ingenuus, servus, &c., vary constantly in their precise meanings, in different countries, or different periods. The greatest mediævalists of Europe, such as Professor Maitland in England, Below in Germany, or del Giudice in Italy, have repeatedly expressed their inability to render adequately the true sense of a given term in a mediæval document. Under these conditions it was both the wisest and the fairest way out of the difficulty to leave mediæval documents in their own words. In addition to the preceding consideration we may say, that in mediæval Latin there is much of that mediæval atmosphere which it is so important a matter to imbue oneself with.

The present work comprises the Middle Ages, and with regard to some documents relating to Christianity, even the fourth century A.D., and modern times up to 1871. To collect into one volume the principal documents of fifteen centuries is in itself a very precarious undertaking. When, moreover, one considers the great differences of opinion as to what constitutes the hall-mark of a "principal" document, the task appears at once as one both bold and unwise. Even on the Continent, where innumerable attempts at a synthesis of History have been made in the last century, there is to the present day no concourse of opinion on the number or nature of the documents

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which we might call the "principal" ones. editor of the present work is fully aware of this. is also prepared to be scolded or censured for his choice. May he ask leave to state candidly why he has some confidence in his own choice?

There are in this country very many and excellent teachers of one or another period of History. It is, however, no offence to say, that the number of teachers lecturing on or studying History as a whole is a very small one. General History is not yet a subject in which examinations are passed or honours won. Accordingly, there have as yet appeared no works in which the general facts of History have been put together fully and clearly. Most writers on History at once specialise on some one smaller or greater period of History; and we are given. to understand that such early specialisation alone will lead to a "scientific" treatment of History. Under these circumstances it is impossible to find a guide, more or less generally accepted by British scholars, as to the right choice of "principal" documents in General History.

The editor of the present book has, for over thirty years, pursued a study of General History on the basis of the following leading ideas :

In the first place, it appears incontrovertible that there are, in the history of Europeans at any rate, general facts as distinguished from particular facts. Such facts are, for instance, the existence of the city-state as the practically only form of polity established by the Hellenes; the fact that the Romans alone of all nations matured a science of Private Law; that the dominating factor of the early Middle Ages was the Catholic Church, and more especially the great monastic orders; that in modern Europe there has been, until the nineteenth century, a constant conflict between forces making for territorial states

as against forces making for states national; that all the great Western nations have gone through an intellectual Renascence, a religious Reformation, and a political Revolution; &c.

Secondly, that these general facts have at all times dominated the particular facts.

Thirdly, that these general facts cannot be explained nor accounted for by a mere enumeration or collocation of an ever so large number.of particular facts. They need, on the contrary, a consideration of their own from a point of view different from that required for the study of special facts.

It has been the editor's object to state and account for those general facts that, in his opinion, are the dominating powers in all European history. This he has, after thirty years' study of documents, books, and historic maps, together with extensive travels in Europe and America, tried to do in his General History (two vols., now in the press). On the basis of the material and thought so collected from books and life and professional teaching of history, the editor has drawn up his plan for the present work.

This plan is in itself simple enough. Given that general facts do in reality govern particular events, it was indispensable to observe in the present work the order from general to less general facts. The most general facts are the international treaties; almost equal to them in their wide effect on the generality of white humanity is the Catholic Church, and accordingly much space has been devoted to the institutions, events, and personalities of the Catholic Church, which, it must be repeated, is still one of the world's great factors, and which, up to the first half of the sixteenth century, was, of all the factors of European history, the most decisive. Next to them. rank, in point of general effect in the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire,

together with some institutions which were in mediæval times much more uniform than European institutions are at the present day. After these very general influences in medieval Europe, the Italian city-states must be considered as among the most generally influential polities in the Middle Ages.

After these follow the various great countries of Europe and America, the principal documents of which are likewise selected according to their degree of greater or lesser general influence on history.

The editor is well aware that the most elaborate explanation of his choice of documents will fail to secure the consent of all, or even of most, teachers of History. He hopes, however, of having given a nucleus of principal documents which each teacher may conveniently increase and alter according to his own views. The editor will be very grateful for any remark or criticism arising from the practical experiences of teachers, or serious students of History. He does not in the least pose as an "authority." In History, any more than in Philosophy, there is no authority. There are "authorities," i.e., sources; but no authority. No one's statement can be taken for granted. The editor makes bold to say, that there is just one, and only one, of his views with regard to which he would not even enter into a discussion. This is the view of the existence and pre-eminence of general facts in History, stated above. But for such a view, a book like the present is impossible. History is, taking it merely from the formal side, a series if not a system of a restricted number of general facts, dominating an endless array of particular events. But general facts are not the arithmetical sum of particular facts; they are, to continue the mathematical phraseology, their integration. This, the central idea of the editor's view of History, has dictated his choice of documents.

The documents themselves have been carefully copied from the best editions of the originals. The proof-reading was most laborious, although four trained students of history, in addition to the editor, were employed for this task. It is hoped that the number of grave mistakes is exceedingly small. To each document is prefixed a short introduction or heading, giving the essential facts or points of view illustrating the historical perspective of the document. For fuller illustration the reader is referred to the editor's forthcoming General History. A short yet full bibliography for the further study of the details, circumstances, and effects of the events or institutions recorded in the document, is appended to the introduction. The index will, it is confidently hoped, add most materially to the usefulness of the book. It has been compiled with a view of exhausting both the proper names and the subjects contained in the documents here edited. With the rare exception of a few unimportant names containing mere titles of ambassadors, every proper name or "subject," whether bearing on historical geography, diplomatic Church history, has been entered in the index, together with some qualifying word, so as to avoid bald references. Any teacher of history will at once recognise that the choice of the documents, the introductions, the bibliographies, and the elaborate index, all concur to give into the hands of students a work of reference such as has not yet been attempted either here or on the Continent. For rapid reference, members of Parliament and journalists will find this book, it is hoped, of considerable value.

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The editor cannot close this introduction without a word of cordial thanks to Messrs. P. S. King & Son, to whose liberality and patience the present work is largely due.

LONDON, May, 1905.

EMIL REICH.