Note 200 — Front matter (continued 3)

The two ablest recent writers on Hildebrand, the Right Reverend Dr. A.H. Mathew (The Life and Times of Hildebrand, 1910) and Dr. W. Martens (War Gregor VII. Mönch?, 1891, and Gregor VII., 2 vols. 1894—an invaluable study), hold that he never took the vows. The chief biography of Hildebrand on the Catholic side is now the Abbé O. Delarc's Grégoire VII. et la Réforme de l'Église au XI siècle (3 vols., 1889). Slight but excellent sketches will be found in F. Roquain's La Papauté au moyen âge (1881) and Hildebrand and His Times (1888) by W.R.W. Stephens. Older writers like Voigt, Gfrörer, Villemain, and Bowden are now of little use. The original authorities are as numerous as they are unreliable. The partisans of Gregory (chiefly Bonitho and Donizo) are scarcely more scrupulous than the partisans of Henry (Benzo, Benno, Guido, etc.), or those of Rudolph (Lambert, Berthold, Bruno, etc.). Fortunately we have a large number of Gregory's letters, and, as usual, I rely chiefly on these.