Several ofthe themes of this study have been treated in earlier publica tions, some by means of a general analysis and some through a detailed handling of problems raised by a particular theme or historian. Both the more general theoretical treatment of the theme and the concrete historiographical treatment are, I think, indispensable aids to the proper understanding of the development of historical scholarship in nineteenth-and twentieth-century England. There are a number of problems in a concrete historiographical approach: there is first the mass of historians to be faced, and then the immense amount of historical themes dealt with in various periods. As a guideline through the tangle of themes we chose the historiography on the development of the English parliament. We can only hope that we have made a responsible choice of the historians concerned. Un fortunately it was not always possible for us to give extensive biogra phies of some of the more recent historians, as several 'papers' are still firmly in the possession of families, and a number of them mus- despite of years - still be labelled 'confidential.' The Pollard Papers in the London Institute of Historical Research thus remained inaccessible. Fortunately the lack was partly compen sated by some important material being found apart from these Papers.

In a fresh examination of the French ceremonial entry, Neil Murphy considers the role these events played in the negotiation between urban elites and the Valois monarchy for rights and liberties. Moving away from the customary focus on the pageantry, this book focuses on how urban governments used these ceremonies to offer the ruler (or his representatives) petitions regarding their rights, liberties and customs. Drawing on extensive research, he shows that ceremonial entries lay at the heart of how the state functioned in later medieval and Renaissance France.