It is impossible, of course, to give explicit directions as to the use of the book, other than the very obvious methods of requiring the student to read and analyze the documents assigned in connection with the lesson in the text-book, and of making clear to him the relation of the document to the event. It may be possible also for the teacher to give the student some notion of the meaning of "historical method"; _e.g._, the necessity of making allowance for the ignorance or the bias of the author in chronicles, or the way in which a knowledge of institutions is deduced from incidental references in documents. Suggestions of both sorts will be found in the introduction and notes. The teacher should insist on the use of such helps as are found in the book: notes, cross-references, glossary, etc. Groups of documents can be used to advantage in topical work: assigned topics worked up from authorities can be illustrated by documents selected from the book; _e.g._, imperial elections, papal elections, the Normans in Sicily, history of the Austrian dominions, Germans and Slavs on the eastern frontier, relations of the emperors and the popes before the investiture strife, etc. TABLE OF CONTENTS page Section I. The Germans and the Empire to 1073 1-81 1. Selections from the Germania of Tacitus, _ca._ 100 2 2. Procopius, Vandal war 11 3. Procopius, Gothic war 12 4. The Salic law, _ca._ 500 14 5. Selections from Gregory of Tours 26 6. The coronation of Pippin, 751 37 7. Einhard's Life of Karl the Great 38 8. The imperial coronation of Karl the Great, 800 48 9. General capitulary about the _missi_, 802 48 10. Selections from the Monk of St. Gall 51 11. Letter of Karl the Great to Baugulf, 787 55 12. Letter of Karl about the sermons of Paul the Deacon 56 13. Recognition of Karl by the emperors at Constantinople, 812 57 14. Letter of Karl to emperor Michael I, 813 58 15. Letter to Ludwig the Pious about a comet, 837 59 16. The Strassburg oaths, 842 60 17. The treaty of Verdun, 843. Annales Bertiniani 62 18. The treaty of Verdun. Regino 63 19. The treaty of Meersen, 870 64 20. Invasion of the Northmen, end of the ninth century 65 21. Invasion of the Hungarians, _ca._ 950 65 22. Dissolution of the empire. Regino 66 23. The coronation of Arnulf, 896. Regino 69 24.