VIEW

OF

THE STATE OF EUROPE

DURING

THE MIDDLE AGES.

BY HENRY HALLAM, LL.D., F.R.A.S.

INCORPORATING IN THE TEXT THE AUTHOR'S LATEST RESEARCHES,
WITH ADDITIONS FROM RECENT WRITERS, AND ADAPTED

TO THE USE OF STUDENTS.

BY WILLIAM SMITH, D.C.L., LL.D.

NEW YORK:

HARPER & BROTHERS, PUBLISHERS,

FRANKLIN SQUARE.

Any of the above books sent by mail, postage prepaid, to any part of the United States or Canada, on receipt of the price.

PREFACE.

THE present Edition of the "History of the Middle Ages has been undertaken with the concurrence of Mr. Hallam's representatives, who consider that a great injustice has been done to his literary character by the reprint of the obsolete edition of 1816, after it had been superseded by the Author's own careful revision, and had been enriched by many supplemental notes, which added one-third to the original size of the Work.

A few words are necessary to explain the plan which the Editor has adopted in order to bring the Work within one volume, available for the use of Students. It must not be regarded as an Abridgment; for though some omissions have been made, for reasons stated below, they are few in amount, and nothing essential or important has been left out. In fact, the great bulk of the book remains unchanged. But it is necessary to recollect the plan which Mr. Hallam pursued in the later editions of his Work, in order to judge of the necessity and expediency of the alterations and omissions made in this Edition. He informed his readers, in the Pref ace to his "Supplemental Notes," "that he was always reluctant to make such alterations as would leave to the purchasers of former editions a right to complain," and that being anxious to bring his Work "nearer to the boundaries of the historic domain, as it had been enlarged within his own age," he published in a separate form various disqui sitions, in which his object was "to reconsider those portions. of the Work which related to subjects discussed by eminent writers since its publication, to illustrate and enlarge some passages which had been imperfectly or obscurely treated, and to acknowledge with freedom his own errors." Now, however much we may respect the Author's motives in

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