352 Reviews of Books but this is because the texts and studies do not yet exist. The English calendar is not at all an itinerary nor an index to the chronicles or other sources, but this was not desired. In its bearing on the political or nar- rative history of the time, the English work is no better than the German and not so easy to use. As material for institutional history, however, it is decidedly superior. The German is hardly more than an index, and in the great majority of cases reference must be made to the full text, while in the case of the English in an equally large majority of cases this is not at all necessary. The point is stated in full, in fact the text is translated. To many of us on this side of the water, this is a matter of great import- ance. The American student, interested in Norman or feudal institutions, but stranded by some mysterious oversight of Providence far from a good library, has here, at a merely nominal cost as compared with printed cartularies, 1500 charters of these three centuries in a form to meet prac- tically all his needs. He will find his reasons for gratitude increased by the addition to the careful index of names of an indfx rerum — not by any means complete even in the subjects that are noticed, but very welcome nevertheless. It is probable that more that is strictly new may be learned from this book in family and local than in institutional history, but a great number of points of law and practice receive illustration, some of it by no means common. Most of the points which are new Mr. Round has noticed in his preface. One of the most interesting of these is the dis- covery in No. 1205 of the "sheriff of the honor of Pevensey." Mr. Round does not make it clear in his remarks whether he supposes the Walter of this charter to have been a king's sheriff, or the Count of Mortain's own vicoinic for the honor, but as one charter clearly shows that the count recovered possession of the land which Walter had seized by a suit in his own court he probably means the latter. If this inter- pretation of the case is correct, we have here the best illustration yet found of what is a very rare use of the word in England, and one much less common in Normandy itself than in some other parts of France. Charter No. 757 of the Gloucester Cartulary (Vol. II., p. 197) may be compared with No. 1122 of Mr. Round's Calendar. These instances do not prove that the grantors actually had officers whom they called vicotntes, but they do show that such a use of the word was not strange to them. The feudal court, whether royal or baronial, receives in these char- ters constant illustrations on all sides, of composition, procedure, and competence. Interesting instances are : the oral examination of wit- nesses before the court in Nos. 78 and 1 190, but there is here no case so interesting as that recorded in Boutaric, Actes du Parlement de Paris, I. ccxcviii, No. 4 ; the election or appointment of a committee of the court to go apart to consider the case and decide it in Nos. 712, 11 14, and 1257, a very old practice ; the trial of appeals to the Pope by local ecclesiastics appointed by him from whose decision there was no appeal, Nos. 143-147 ; suits of the lord in his own court, Nos. 232, 799, 1205 ;
