at all stages of my work from its inception to its publication. To Mr.
Charles G. Osgood, Jr., I am also indebted for valuable criticism.

ROBERT KILBURN ROOT.

YALE UNIVERSITY,
April 7, 1899.




INTRODUCTION


[Sidenote: _The Manuscript_.]

While traveling in Italy during the year 1832, Dr. Blume, a German
scholar, discovered in the cathedral library at Vercelli an Old
English manuscript containing both poetry and prose. The longest and
the best of the poems is the _Andreas_, or _Legend of St. Andrew_.

How did this manuscript find its way across the Alps into a country
where its language was wholly unintelligible? Several theories have
been advanced, the most plausible being that advocated by Cook.[1]
According to this view it was carried thither by Cardinal Guala, who
during the reign of Henry III was prior of St. Andrew's, Chester. On
his return to Italy he built the monastery of St. Andrew in Vercelli,
strongly English in its architecture. Since the manuscript contained
a poem about St. Andrew, it would have been an appropriate gift to St.
Andrew's Church in Vercelli. Wülker's theory that it was owned by an