The Flourishing of Romance and the Rise of Allegory

This series is intended to survey and illustrate the development of the vernacular literatures of medieval and Europe; and for that purpose it is unnecessary to busy ourselves with more than a part of the Latin writing which, in a steadily decreasing but—until the end of the last century—an always considerable proportion, served as the vehicle of literary expression. But with a part of it we are as necessarily concerned as we are necessarily compelled to decline the whole.