had always felt, though they had not been able to give their feelings due and complete expression. It is true that this simple piety had been set in a framework of superstition, and that the Church had been generally looked upon as an institution within which priests exercised a secret science of redemption through their power over the sacraments; but the old evangelical piety existed, and its traces can be found when sought for. A portion of the chapter which describes the family and popular religious life immediately preceding the Reformation has already appeared in the _London Quarterly Review_ for October 1903. In describing the beginnings of the Lutheran Reformation, I have had to go over the same ground covered by my chapter on “Luther” contributed to the second volume of the _Cambridge Modern History_, and have found it impossible not to repeat myself. This is specially the case with the account given of the theory and practice of Indulgences. It ought to be said, however, that in view of certain strictures on the earlier work by Roman Catholic reviewers, I have gone over again the statements made about Indulgences by the great mediæval theologians of the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries, and have not been able to change the opinions previously expressed. My thanks are due to my colleague, Dr. Denney, and to another friend for the care they have taken in revising the proof-sheets, and for many valuable suggestions which have been given effect to. Thomas M. Lindsay. _March, 1906._ BOOK I. ON THE EVE OF THE REFORMATION. Chapter I. The Papacy.(1) § 1. Claim to Universal Supremacy. The long struggle between the Mediæval Church and the Mediæval Empire, between the priest and the warrior,(2) ended, in the earlier half of the thirteenth century, in the overthrow of the Hohenstaufens, and left the Papacy sole inheritor of the claim of ancient Rome to be sovereign of the civilised world. _Roma caput mundi regit orbis frena rotundi._