The New Testament writers, we are constantly being reminded, were not in the stricter sense of the word theologians. We all know what that reminder means and it is one of no small value. It would be disastrous, however, were we to allow it to suggest to us that the Christian writers of the ensuing centuries were men of an entirely different species, whose natural habitat was the study and whose primary characteristic was disinterested reflexion on theological topics. Their teaching, too, can only be rightly understood in the light of the particular concerns and pressures of the moment, which impinged upon them. The importance of this approach to the study of the Fathers is particularly well exemplified by the early history of the question whether or not Christ possessed a human soul.

It is not at first sight easy to explain the ever-growing appeal which Cluny had during the tenth and eleventh centuries for clergy and still more for laymen, particularly in Burgundy, France, Christian Spain and North Italy. The basis of Cluniac life was the choir service of the monks and the silence and ordered round of the cloister. By and large the Cluniacs did not seek to work outside the cloister or to become involved in wider pastoral care. They were, indeed, concerned for the Church and for the world at large, but with a view to winning individuals to share spiritually and to support materially the other-worldly ends of the monastic order. Yet, especially under abbots Odilo and Hugh, there was a rapid rise in the number of houses subject to Cluny or otherwise influenced by it; a Cluniac house formed part of the neighbourhood of a large part of the people who lived to the south and west of Lorraine. Cluny itself was well situated to attract travellers, and its dependencies were especially important on the pilgrimage routes. Together with the increasing number of Cluniac houses the long series of charters which record its endowment with monasteries, churches, lands and other wealth testify to its impact upon Church and Society in western Europe.

Lanfranc was born at Pavia early in the eleventh century, became a monk of Bee in Normandy about 1041, was promoted prior three years later, and was appointed abbot of Caen in 1063 and archbishop of Canterbury in 1070. He died in William Rufus's reign in 1089. He had three distinct careers, first as a wandering scholar, second as a cloistered monk, and finally as a prelate. One obstacle to viewing Lanfranc as a whole is the nature and form of the sources for his life. And I propose in this paper first to look briefly at the sources, then to comment on the various phases of his curriculum vitae and, in conclusion, to make a few rash observations on his character and manners.

The recent work of Professor W. K. Jordan on charitable benefactions in the period between 1480 and 1660 has focused the attention of historians on this aspect of social history, and there is no doubt that his studies have made a significant contribution to the understanding of these years. Certain aspects of the work have, however, been criticised by reviewers, and. the purpose of the present paper is to examine the subject from the viewpoint of the medievalist to see if this throws light on general problems of the study of charity as well as on the more specific topic of late medieval charity.

John Bird Sumner (1780–1862) established his reputation as an author whilst he was still a young Fellow at Eton, and it was as a reward for his writings that he was appointed in 1820 to a canonry at Durham by bishop Shute Barrington. In 1826 his younger brother, Charles Sumner, was appointed to the bishopric of Llandaff, together with the deanery of St. Paul's, and in the following year was translated to the more lucrative and socially desirable see of Winchester, where he remained until 1869. Charles Sumner's sudden rise from being assistant curate of Highclere, near Newbury, to private chaplain at Carlton House and Royal Librarian, was due to the favourable impression he made on George IV when he was introduced by the Conyngham family, then prominent at Court. In 1828 John Sumner was given the arduous diocese of Chester by the duke of Wellington. It is doubtful whether he would have been thought of for a bishopric without the advocacy of his brother, but he proved to be a vigorous pastoral bishop.

It is well known that the role of public opinion in England before and during the Crimean War was almost uniquely important. It is probably equally well known that in the middle of the nineteenth century church-going and clerical prestige both reached a remarkably high level, except among the working classes. There is, thus, a strong prima facie case for supposing that the churches played a significant part in forming opinion at this critical time, offering as they did to their members interpretations of public events in accordance with their own theological outlook. Certainly such interpretations were far more in demand during the Crimean War than during the wars of either the eighteenth or the twentieth century. It is a striking fact that this was the last English war to be begun with the proclamation of a General Fast, and probably the only modern war in which military disasters prompted another General Fast. The clergy's public was remarkably large and remarkably attentive. The circulation of the religious weekly press almost approached that of the serious secular weeklies (the Athenaeum apart), while the long life of the Penny Pulpit, made up exclusively of the recent sermons of the most popular preachers of the day, reveals a substantial sermon-buying public well below the social levels which the familiar bound volumes of a single preacher's sermons suggest.