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THE REV. ARTHUR PENRHYN STANLEY, D.D.,

REGIUS PROFESSOR OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY IN THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD,

CANON OF CHRISTCHURCH, AND LATE CANON OF CANTERBURY,

WHO HAS MADE A PORTION OF THE SUBJECT PECULIARLY HIS OWN,

This Volume is Dedicated,

IN TOKEN OF THE AUTHOR'S SINCERE RESPECT AND REGARD.

ROME, October 22, 1859.

PREFACE.

THIS volume has grown out of two articles which appeared in the English Review' thirteen years ago; and, notwithstanding the changes as to form and size which those papers have now undergone, I have thought it well to retain some marks of their original character, as contributions to a literary journal.

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Let me venture here to express an earnest hope that the whole body of documents relating to the history of Becket may speedily find a place in the series of Chronicles and Memorials' which is now in progress under the superintendence of the Master of the Rolls. Of the necessity of a competent editor's care for the arrangement and illustration of the correspondence, I have spoken elsewhere; and, next to this, the most considerable part of such an editor's task would probably be the analysis and comparison of the various biographies, with a view of ascertaining their correspondences and divergences, and the sources from which each writer derived his materials. Perhaps the result of such an inquiry might be found to throw some light on questions connected with a Historia Quadripartita far more important than that which is devoted to the Life of Thomas of Canterbury.

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My best thanks are due to the Rev. W. W. Shirley, of Wadham College, Oxford; to Mr. Fergusson, of Langham Place (author of the excellent Handbook of Architecture,' &c.); and to Mr. George Austin, of Canterbury, for the kind and valuable assistance which I have received from them. J. C. R.

Precincts, Canterbury,

September, 1859.

P.S.-A new edition of the metrical Life by Garnier has just been published at Paris by M. Hippeau, of Caen-too late for me to make use of the text; but I may refer to M. Hippeau's Introduction (although it contains some things in which I cannot agree) for a forcible argument against the theory which represents Becket as a champion of the Saxon race.

November 2, 1859.