PREFACE.

This was not so much because, before I had left those stipends to seek the Gospel of these foreign languages—which was necessary for the study of the harmony of the world and for the cares of necessary travels—I had as much for the sake of teaching under King Francis of France, of good memory: but because you had received from the Chancellor that I ought to be retained for far greater things, so that such a noble work might proceed from the Kingdom divinely entrusted to you by the Crown, under your care and protection. For what could ever be greater than that from the King of the Romans (a title by which you yourself are far more illustrious than by even a thousand names of Emperor, both on account of truth and humility; and also because, almost nine hundred years before the title of King of the Romans was born under the authority of Christ, it was divinely revealed to Blessed Methodius the martyr for this purpose, that the King)