ervices, this: that during my four years at Poughkeepsie, I was
enabled to use the Vassar library. For her good offices, as well as
for the kindness of the librarian, Miss Amy Reed, my thanks. My
father, the Rev. Dr. Henry Preserved Smith, professor and librarian at
Union Theological Seminary, has often sent me rare books from that
library; nor can I mention this, the least of his favors, without
adding that I owe to him much both of the inspiration to follow and of
the means to pursue a scholar's career. My thanks are also due to the
libraries of Columbia and Cornell for the use of books. But the work
could not easily have been done at all without the facilities offered
by the Harvard Library. When I came to Cambridge to enjoy the riches
of this storehouse, I found the great university not less hospitable to
the stranger within her gates than she is prolific in great sons.
After I was already deep in debt to the librarian, Mr. W. C. Lane, and
to many of the professors, a short period in the service of Harvard, as
lecturer in history, has made me feel that I am no longer a stranger,
but that I can count myself, in some sort, one of her citizens and
foster sons, at least a dimidiatus alumnus.

This book owes more to my wife than even she perhaps quite realizes.
Not only has it been her study, since our marriage, to give me freedom
for my work, but her literary advice, founded on her own experience as
writer and critic, has been of the highest value, and she has carefully
read the proofs.

PRESERVED SMITH.

Cambridge,
Massachusetts,
May 16, 1920.

CONTENTS

PAGE

CHAPTER I. THE OLD AND THE NEW . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

1. The World. Economic changes in the later Middle Ages. Rise of the
bourgeoisie. Nationalism. Individualism. Inventions. Printing.
Exploration. Universities.

2. The Church. The papacy. The Councils of Constance and Basle.
Savonarola.

3. Causes of the Reformation. Corruption of the church not a main
cause. Condition of the church. Indulgences. Growth of a new type of
lay piety. Clash of the new spirit with old ideals.

4. The Mystics. _The German Theology_. Tauler. _The Imitation of
Christ_.

5. The Pre-reformers. Waldenses. Occam. Wyclif. Huss.

6. Nationalizing the churches. The Ecclesia Anglicana. The Gallican
Church. German church. The Gravamina.

7. The Humanists. Valla.