PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE. EDITED BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY. A COMPLETE AND CONTINUOUS HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT. In 12 Crown 8vo Volumes. Price 7s. 6d. net each. "The criticism which alone can much help us for the future is a criticism which regards Europe as being, for intellectual and spiritual purposes, one great confederation, bound to a joint action and working to a common result.” THE FOURTEENTH CENTURY BY F. J. SNELL WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS MCMXXIII LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA All Rights reserved PREFACE. THE range and difficulty of the task essayed in the following pages render explanation unavoidable. The writer entered on the undertaking, not only with much trepidation, but with some amount of misapprehension. When at last the real nature of the enterprise dawned upon him, he was already too deeply committed to withdraw from it. He determined therefore to do his best, consoling himself with the thought that the work was worth accomplishing, were the workman unworthy. It is evident that a book of this sort must depend, in a larger measure than is entirely agreeable, on compilation. The only alternative is to ignore the claims of whole literatures with which one possesses no large first-hand acquaintance. To be precise, the writer, though he once knew a little Swedish, is exceedingly backward in Icelandic, whilst his Welsh is even more elementary, being almost non-existent. It is hardly necessary perhaps to inflict on the reader an exact statement of literary and linguistic limitations in respect of other European tongues. Enough that these limitations are felt and confessed; but they do not affect, in any serious degree, the vitals of the work. If personal reputation From an author's point of view, the making of such a book, though it has its advantages, especially in deepening his insight into the various subject-matters, has also its disadvantages. were the object at stake, then he must needs lament the mingling of results attained by his own thought and industry with those accepted on authority, though he recognises, with all sensible judges, that only in that way can a work of this kind be satisfactorily carried through. If there be a danger of the author receiving more credit than his due, there is also a danger of his receiving considerably less. Neither event, however, is of much public importance, if the object of the series be overtaken, or, at any rate, approached, in the broadening of literary study, in the breaking down of artificial barriers of race, and language, and country. Long before he contemplated the possibility of such an honour as that which has now fallen to his lot, the writer had studied practically on the lines now suggested for imitation. On the right-hand side of the fireplace in the library of Balliol there was, and may still be, a set of Italian classics, for inopportune |