When the Visigoths crossed the Danube in 376 and entered the Roman provinces, were they Christian or pagan? Were the two armies which clashed at Adrianople on 9 August 378 composed substantially of Christians, or were the victors still pagan? When Ulfila, the Apostle of the Goths, died c. 382, had he succeeded in converting his fellow countrymen to Christianity? It will be argued here that it would be inconsistent with such evidence as exists to suppose that the Visigoths were a Christian people at any of these dates

The journey to Mongolia of Giovanni de Plano Carpini and Benedict the Pole of Vratislavia (Wroclaw, Breslau) in 1245–1247 has been explored by historians. But the significance of their careers in Poland and Ruthenia has not yet been studied and remains a subject for future research. The Minorites, in addition to their chief mission—the peace negotiations with the Grand Khan in Karakorum—had been ordered to start conversations in Cracow (Kraków) and Halicz to bring about the union of Orthodox Ruthenia with Rome. Since he was vicedelegate and companion to friar Giovanni, Benedict's contribution to the achievement of the union seems to have been overlooked or insufficiently appreciated.

Thomas Bradwardine has suffered more from neglect than perhaps any other major medieval thinker. This is less his fault than that of his age. The fourteenth century, even now, is still largely misty and confused; its main streams of thought have none of the comparative clarity of the thirteenth century; many of its thinkers are still largely unknown; and even its topics lack the sweep and fullness of, say, St. Thomas or St. Bonaventure, at first sight appearing arid and remote, governed by little but a love of dispute.

On 24 June 1504, being the Feast of St. John the Baptist, Brother William Ingram, of the Cathedral Priory of Christ, Canterbury, paid 3d. ‘pro reparacione inferioris hostii prope claustrum vocati le red dur et pro una clave pertinente ad eundem’. Such was the first expenditure of a cautious man who had taken over the charge of Custos Martirii, which, together with the two custodes at the shrine of the Saint, and two others at the Corona and the site of the first tomb, in the Crypt, was one of the greater offices in the cult of St. Thomas of Canterbury.

This is the story of Edward Kirkby's deposition from the office of abbot of Rievaulx in 1533. It has been briefly told before, but the author of that article was not aware of some important evidence and also burdened his account with misleading preconceptions. Perhaps it is not surprising that all monastic events in the decade 1530–40 should tend to be linked with greater events in Church and State: the Dissolution is commonly allowed to cast its distorting shadow both fore and aft. When a single London monastery is dissolved, historians suspect a carefully staged dress rehearsal of the larger destruction; similarly they ascribe the fate of abbot Edward Kirkby to his ‘opposing the king's new doctrines’. But this concentration on the outstanding event is most perilous. The monasteries of the day do not seem to have been aware of their coming doom; their history continued to be centred upon the narrower compass’ of their own interests. We shall see that Kirkby's story does indeed reflect some issues of more general importance, but it is not true that he was deposed because he quarrelled with the new state of things or because the king wanted him out. In fact, Henry VIII in person never enters upon the stage and is likely to have remained practically ignorant of Edward Kirkby. Like others of that time, the abbot has been permitted to wear an undeserved, if rather tiny, crown of lesser martyrdom—lesser because, surviving the 1530s, he lacked the full qualifications for a victim of Henry VIII. The facts must rob him of his touch of spurious glory, but his unmasking may help towards a better understanding of that troubled age.

Among the archives belonging to the diocese of London and housed in two muniment rooms in St. Paul's Cathedral, is a bundle of papers labelled ‘Certificates as to Papists, 1706’. Curiosity having tempted me to undo and examine its contents, I now give a survey of the documents therein contained, believing that this may prove to be of value in two respects: first, as throwing new light upon members of a proscribed religion at a time which, so far as can be ascertained from books and records in libraries, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, is very poorly documented; secondly, as giving yet another insight into the character and outlook of a section of the Anglican clergy at the beginning of the eighteenth century.