This monograph was originally intended as a study of the various types of so-called small-long brooch and their distribution. It has, however, grown far beyond the limits of a single class, because for purposes of comparison I found myself led on to compile one map after another illustrating the distribution of other of the humbler Anglo-Saxon brooch-types, and also certain aspects of the distribution of better known types and of other objects in use among the Anglo-Saxons outside eastern Kent. This series of maps, it is hoped, will supplement those relating to the more ornate brooches published in my Early Anglo-Saxon Art and Archaeology (Rhind Lectures, 1935).

A recent beautiful publication by Mr. Mynors of the MSS. in the Cathedral Library at Durham has raised an important point in the history of English illuminated MSS. Up to now there has been a tendency to regard the Norman Conquest as constituting a complete break with the past accompanied by the introduction of a new style of illumination. There is, of course, no doubt that in many spheres of life the Norman occupation of England did do away with many characteristics of Anglo-Saxon England. But this is not the whole story. A change in one department of life does not mean a revolution in another. In the realm of literature, for instance, Professor Chambers has shown that the Conquest did not interrupt the writing and development of vernacular prose. Mr. Mynors's book produces ample evidence to confirm a suspicion long held by some, but not uttered, that much of the ornament used by illuminators of English MSS. during the first fifty years after the Conquest is directly descended from motives in use in England long before the Norman invasion. To Mr. Mynors's evidence from Durham, examples of illuminated MSS. from Canterbury may be added in order to show that the famous outline drawing style of the English MSS. of the tenth and eleventh centuries had healthy descendants in the early years of the twelfth century. The best place to see this continuity is in the illuminated initials of these MSS. In order to do so it is necessary to examine the development of initial ornament in England during the tenth and eleventh centuries.

For some years before 1538 the politics of western Europe had been dominated by the mutual jealousy of the Emperor Charles V and Francis I, king of France. Henry VIII's diplomacy had often tended to increase the tension between them, since it was clearly in England's interest to divide her potential enemies. The Pope on the other hand sought to reconcile them, and in June 1538 he succeeded so far as to negotiate a truce for ten years between the rivals.

Worcester House in the Strand, the most famous of all the houses so named, was situated in what the Ordnance Surveyors of 1871 called ‘St. Clement Danes Parish, Detached Area No. 2’, where now stands the Savoy Theatre (pl. XVII c). The other mansions of that name associated with the Earldom of Worcester were in the City or neighbourhood of London—in Bishopsgate Street, Anchor Street (at the foot of Garlick Hill) in Vintry Ward, Clerkenwell, Tower Street, Stepney, and Southwark, Acton, Ewell Park, and Enfield.