The documents chosen cover the modest period of nine hundred years of the world's history, and vary in length from one page to one hundred and twenty Law, religion, politics, and general civilization are among the topics chosen for illustration. "Such documents as I have chosen are the very framework of history. How little are they known, even by those who have perused volumes of references to and comments upon them " Translated and Edited by Ernest Flagg Henderson (1861-1928).