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Volume V shows a contrasting picture of eighteenth-century Oxford to that presented by Edward Gibbon in his Autobiography. A more balanced assessment has been long overdue. From detailed studies it is now possible to show that in most subjects Oxford had a reputation that was far from contemptible, and one that attracted foreign scholars in some numbers. Academic responsibilities were taken seriously and reforming minds were at work. Attention is given to the University's role in national politics, its social and administrative structure, and its relationship with the Church, as well as the full range of academic life and culture in eighteenth-century Oxford. Contributors: L. G . Mitchell, G. V. Bennett, P. Langford, L. S. Sutherland, I. G. Doolittle, J. P. D. Dunbabin, V. H. H. Green, R. Greaves, P. Quarrie, M. L. Clarke, D. Patterson, P. J. Marshall, J. Yolton, J. L. Barton, A. G. MacGregor, G. I'E. Turner, C. Webster, I. G. Philip, S. Piggott, D. Fairer, H. M. Colvin, E. Waterhouse, S. L. F. Wollenberg

The seventy years before 900 were an era of disorder and continued crisis in southern Italy. The government of the principality of Benevento, which ruled over most of the south of the peninsula, was riven by succession disputes which led to the formal partition of the principality in 849. Thus, from c. 900 onwards the political structures of southern Italy remained, at least outwardly, more or less in equilibrium. Indeed in 956, when the government in Constantinople was able to release sufficient troops for a major expedition to Italy, the first target of that offensive was apparently Naples. The ecclesiastical changes after 970 were part of a more general overhaul of the administrative structure of Byzantine Italy. The expansion of the Greek population of Calabria into the heel of Italy led to administrative changes both lay and ecclesiastical. The year 982 saw the catastrophic eclipse of Ottonian influence in the south.