PERIODS OF EUROPEAN LITERATURE. EDITED BY PROFESSOR SAINTSBURY. A COMPLETE AND CONTINUOUS HISTORY OF THE SUBJECT. "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 DARK AGES BY W. P. KER FELLOW OF ALL SOULS COLLEGE, OXFORD ; NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 153-157 FIFTH AVENUE 1904 All Rights reserved PREFACE. THE scope of this book is described in the Introduction (chapter i.) and in the Editor's account of the whole series, in the next volume, so that there is the less need for a formal Preface. It may be explained, however, that some freedom has been used in the selection and arrangement of matter. Old English literature has been treated, for example, with less detail than Icelandic, because it is more familiar ground in this country, and has been well described in many recent works. In Icelandic, the poems of the Elder Edda have been taken as more important than anything else, but very little is said of the problems of their date and origin. The notes on Irish and Welsh literature are intended merely as illustrations of certain general topics; a fuller account was hardly possible: as it is, this chapter trespasses too far in regions where the author has no special credentials. At the end of the book it was found unnecessary to |