The excuse for writing another history of the Reformation is the need for putting that movement in its proper relations to the economic and intellectual revolutions of the sixteenth century.

The labor of love necessary for the accomplishment of this task has employed most of my leisure for the last six years and has been my companion through vicissitudes of sorrow and of joy.

A large part of the pleasure derived from the task has come from association with friends who have generously put their time and thought at my disposal.

First of all, Professor Charles H.Haskins, of Harvard, having read the whole in manuscript and in proof with care, has thus given me the unstinted benefit of his deep learning, and of his ripe and sane judgment.

Next to him the book owes most to my kind friend, the Rev.Professor William Walker Rockwell, of Union Seminary, who has added to the many other favors he has done me a careful revision of Chapters I to VIII, Chapter XIV, and a part of Chapter IX.