that in many cases it is extremely difficult, in some cases quite impossible, to determine either the age or the place of their original composition. Because of the uncertainty of our knowledge in this respect, and from the fact that it is the substance rather than the form of medieval thought that is most valuable and interesting to us now, such details are of much less importance, even to the specialist, than at any other period of our literature; and the average reader may neglect them with equanimity. For the convenience of those who may desire to prosecute further studies in this field, I have appended also a considerable body of bibliographical notes, which will serve as a guide to the best editions of the works discussed, arranged according to the same divisions that appear in the text. In the preparation of these appendices, which have caused no small amount of labour, I have had the advantage of competent assistance from Miss Muriel B. Carr and Mr. H. N. MacCracken, graduate students of Radcliffe College and Harvard University respectively, which assistance I would here gratefully acknowledge. This book was undertaken with the warm encouragement of my revered master Gaston Paris, and follows in general outline the plan of his indispensable history of Old French literature. It is the fruit of studies begun under the inspiration of the late Professor Child, whom all of us his Harvard disciples hold in loving memory. And it has been brought to an end with the constant help of my former teacher and present colleague, Professor Kittredge, whose vast erudition, keen intelligence, and unfailing generosity astonish most those who know him best. Professor Charles Eliot Norton and others of my friends have done me the favour to read portions of the book in proof, and have made valuable criticisms upon it. To them, one and all, I offer publicly my hearty thanks. Finally, I may say that I should perhaps never have written a volume like this at all had not the suggestion come from that high-minded and brilliant scholar, the Rev. Stopford A. Brooke, to whom the whole of the early period in this series was at first assigned, and who was prevented only by ill-health from treating it throughout with distinction. W. H. S. |