PREFACE. OF the writer of this work, entitled " Flowers of History," we know little more for certain than that his name was Roger de Wendover, from which we may infer that he was a native of the town of Wendover, in Buckinghamshire. Nothing is known of his birth or education, or of the time when he first embraced the monastic life in the abbey of St. Alban's. He rose to the rank of precentor in the fraternity to which he belonged ; and was afterwards promoted to the rank of prior of Belvoir, a cell attached to St. Alban's abbey. It is probable that his promotion to this office took place in the reign of John, since we are informed that he was deposed from it soon after the accession of Henry ΠΙ. The cause of his degradation was alleged, by Walter de Trumpington, twenty-second abbat of St. Alban's, who deposed him, to be, that he had wasted the property of • the house by his extravagance. The historian, Matthew Paris, from whom we learn this fact, adds no farther particulars than that, he was recalled to St. Alban's abbey, where he died on the 6th of May, in the year 1237.