ABSTRACT
No scholarly work is complete without a conclusion, and this one is no different. For all my interrogation of my predecessors’ tendencies to draw conclusions and make pronouncements in ways that my own research did not confirm, it is now my turn to connect the dots and to describe the picture these connections offer us. The image I shall present lacks sharply defined edges; its contours blur under the glare of scholarly attention. It is at best a long shadow that falls across the generations, the shape of its head dissolving into its surroundings the farther we go from its foot which is firmly and undoubtedly planted in Dunmow.
