By the sub-title I wish to indicate that this book is a study of the institutional development, rather than an account of the doctrinal or liturgical life, in the medieval English cathedral churches. The questions connected with understanding the economic and political foundation of religious communities have always seemed to me to be particularly interesting, and no less important than those dealing with the spiritual vocation, or the intellectual achievement, or the building style.

In twelfth-century Latin Europe the bishop and his chapter comprised the most significant constitutional body in the Roman church. But if no bishop could govern without his canons, it was also true that no king could rule without his bishops. In England, especially, where so much of the accomplishment at the national level was bound up with the history of the episcopate, a comparative study of this kind touches on broader issues of wider interest than simply those of local diocesan concerns. It will be apparent in the pages which follow that a satisfactory explanation of the bishop's role in capitular affairs is in many cases a commentary on the larger world of royal and papal politics.

As so often happens in the course of research, various questions, related in some way to the work in hand, have come up, but because of limits on time and space they have not been dealt with in an adequate way.