These essays, mostly reprinted from the Reviews, are intended to defend the moderate Anglican position against the misrepresentations of writers who disparage modern civilization in comparison with a purely imaginary and unhistorical idea of medieval life.

The author attempts to show how much is lost, even from the purely picturesque point of view, by thus sacrificing plain truth to false sentiment; for we shall never see the great men of the past in their full greatness until we realize the difficulties under which they lived and worked. Although the Studies are necessarily controversial to this extent, they are written entirely from orthodox pre-Reformation sources, no others being quoted except here and there in corroboration of facts already established: since the curse of Church history is the too frequent habit of writing from second-hand or partisan documents.

As the plan of these pamphlets renders it impossible to give a crowd of references which would only weary the general reader, the author is glad to give a definite guarantee of his good faith by offering four pages in each pamphlet to any competent critic who will undertake to convict him of serious error. If his statements are inaccurate, he thus undertakes to supply their refutation at his own expense. He has already made a similar offer in vain to many Romanist controversialists, including all the writers of the Catholic Truth Society; and he now repeats the offer, in order to enable the general reader to realize how strongly Anglicanism is supported on many important points by the most incontrovertible medieval testimony.