Excerpt from The Antiquities of the Anglo-Saxon Church It may, perhaps, be expected that I should offer an apology for the freedom with which I have occasionally noticed the mis takes of preceding historians. It is certainly an ungracious, but, I think, a useful oflice. On almost every subject the public mind is guided by the wisdom or prejudices of a few favourite writers: their reputation consecrates their opinions; and their errors are received by the incautious reader as the dictates of truth. On such occasions to be silent is criminal, as it serves to perpetuate deception: and to contradict, without attempting to prove, may create doubt, but cannot impress conviction. As often, therefore, as it has been my lot to dissent from our more popular historians, I have been careful to fortify my own Opinion by frequent references to the sources, from which I have derived my information. No writer should expect to obtain credit on his bare assertion: and the reader, who wishes to judge for him self, will gratefully peruse the quotations, with which I have sometimes loaded the page. To the anglo-saxon extracts, when their importance seemed to demand it, is subjoined a literal translation. The knowledge of that language, though an easy, is not a common acquirement. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.