The present volume treats of the history of the religious orders in England from the pontificate of Benedict XII (1334–42) to the end of the period of strife between the houses of York and Lancaster, though no attempt has been made to keep rigidly within either of these limits. This epoch has been neglected by monastic historians in general, or dismissed in a few words, and the present writer had every expectation that a single volume would suffice to carry the story from the Benedictine Constitutions to the Dissolution. When, however, the sources were regarded more closely, they revealed a number of important developments and activities which hitherto had been either ignored or treated in isolation; the diffusion of Ockhamism in the English universities, the various controversies between the monks and the friars, and the literary work and controversial interests of the university monks, have never been considered in detail with all their mutual relationships. Similarly, no historian has taken account of the varied activities of the most notable group of monks to appear since the twelfth century, men so diverse in gifts and achievements as Alan of Walsingham, Thomas de la Mare, Simon Langham, Uthred of Boldon, Adam Easton and Thomas Brunton.