PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION.
In revising these volumes for the present edition, I have made many improvements for which I feel that I must in some sort throw myself on the indulgence of the buyers and readers of the first edition. The publication of a large work of this kind in distinct volumes is, I believe, on the whole, the most satisfactory way for the reader, as it certainly is for the author. But it has its disadvantages. If no part of a work is printed till the last page of the last volume is written, a final revision may give the earlier parts the advantage of the author’s researches up to the last moment. But if volumes are published separately, the researches which are needful for the composition of the later volumes continually bring to light matter which would have been highly useful during the composition of the earlier volumes. This is especially the case with a subject like mine, where information has to be sought for in so many quarters, and where a great deal of information is drawn from purely incidental notices in quarters where it might hardly have been looked for. Take for instance one of our primary authorities for a great part of my subject, the Norman Survey. None but a professed editor or commentator on Domesday would sit down to read it through, word for word; but, in searching in it for facts bearing on one subject, one is sure to light by the way on facts bearing on half-a-dozen other subjects as well. In these ways I have, in the course of writing the later parts of my work, come across much matter which enables me to correct and improve what I had already written in the earlier parts. All these improvements in detail I have thought it right to make in preparing a second edition. And I have also in many places improved the arrangement of the matter, by throwing some portions of the text and a considerable portion of the notes into the form of Appendices. These portions were chiefly passages which consisted of dissertation rather than narrative, and which therefore seemed better suited to the form of detached essays. This change will, I hope, be found to make the narrative hang better together; but, as the passages removed to the Appendix have shown a tendency to grow on the road, it has somewhat increased the size of the volumes.
I have also done my best to improve the maps. I have added a map of Gaul in the tenth century, which seemed needful for the better understanding of the fourth Chapter. I have also recast the map of Britain in 597, which, as it stood in the first edition, was a failure, owing to the attempt, which can never be thoroughly successful, to represent the state of things at two different periods at once. As it is, it is designed to show, as far as evidence or probable conjecture makes it possible to show, how things stood at the exact time of the mission of Augustine. In this difficult task I have been much helped by Archdeacon Jones, my former colleague in writing the History of Saint David’s, by Mr. J. R. Green, and yet more by Mr. Haddan, whose knowledge of Celtic matters is really amazing. But, after all, there are many points on which it is impossible to get beyond conjecture.
As the changes in the text and notes have disturbed the order of paging, I have added a special Index to this edition of these two volumes. When the whole work is complete, a general Index to the whole five volumes will be given.
It will be at once seen that these improvements are in some sort made at the cost of the purchasers of the first edition, for it is impossible for them to be thrown into the form of a separate supplement for their benefit. I can only ask again for their indulgence towards a course which could not be helped, if the book was to be brought as near perfection as might be.
The revision required by these volumes has unavoidably delayed the composition of the fourth volume; but I am happy to say that it is begun.