It is dangerous to disagree with so learned a man as Dr. Chaytor, but I cannot pretend that his recent interesting and scholarly work on medieval literature does not put one in a quarrelsome mood. A number of the views contained in it are highly disputable, and I feel that much of the rest of it is misleading, even if it cannot be definitely contradicted. The issues it raises, however, are tricky and delicate; nor are Dr. Chaytor’s own positions always perfectly clear. Still, there is so much in his book that seems quite definitely misleading that a reviewer can hardly avoid hostilities, even while he acknowledges that. Dr. Chaytor’s learning has once again made English students of- the Middle Ages his debtors.

Dr. Chaytor’s purpose is to examine and characterise medieval literature from the point of view, in particular, of the way in which it reached its public; and it reached it either orally or through script, but not through print. It is in this sense that he speaks of the “importance of the difference between the literary and critical methods of the early middle ages and those of modern times”, between the age of script and the age of print. We are to be shown how to understand medieval writings in the light of the fact that they were not printed.