The original groundwork of the following volume consisted of an article written by me in the “Christian Remembrancer” of July, 1854, on the subject of mediæval preaching. As some persons thought that it might serve as an introduction to a kind of ecclesiastical literature, too little known and valued among us, I was requested to expand the paper in question and to give extracts at greater length and in chronological order. The chief difficulty was that of selection; partly among so many authors, principally between the various sermons of each author. In the first place, no notice will here be found of S. Bernard, because his super-eminent value and beauty would,—if any regard at all were to be paid to analogy,—have necessarily excluded the greater part of those writers from whom I wished to quote: unless the volume had been swelled to an inconvenient and unreadable size. Again, many eminent men, such as Peter the Venerable, S. Fulbert of Chartres, Hugh of S. Victor, and others, though we certainly have a few sermons of their writing, yet in that particular species of composition claimed no such eminent place as to entitle them to stand in a selection of such narrow limits. Where it was possible, I have chosen British rather than foreign writers; hence the name of Adam Scotus, who would otherwise hardly have appeared in the volume.