140 SHORT NOTICES January was divined by Palgrave without the help of this authority, was first advocated in print by Mr. Round in 1892. It is unlucky that the full account ' of the principal authorities upon which the text is founded ', mentioned in the advertisement to vol. ii, seems not to have been written. The editor and his assistants have done their best to repair this omission ; but in doing this they have not limited themselves to the ' authorities upon which the text is founded ', but have aimed at completeness. The result is that they have included a large number of books which were not accessible to Palgrave. The notes are industriously compiled, but their authors seldom succeed in explaining the many difficult allusions to which Palgrave's prodigious memory gave too frequent an opening. The maps and pedigrees are a useful addition to the book. R. L. P. In his De VOrigine de la Formule ' Dei Gratia ' dans les Charles d'Henri II (Extrait des Memoires de I'Academie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Caen, 1920), Professor Henri Prentout discusses a problem which has attracted the attention of several prominent medieval students, and has already received some consideration in this Review. 1 Starting from Delisle's demonstration, now generally accepted, that the Dei Gratia began to be used by Henry II's chancery at some time between May 1172 and March or May 1173, M. Prentout sets out to ascertain, first a more precise date for the first appearance of the formula, and secondly the reason for its introduction. After reconsidering the main evidence, M. Prentout concludes that ' the grace ' was not adopted by Henry's chancery until 1173, and that the change may very probably have come in the latter part of March or in April of that year. He would seem to regard April as being, on the whole, the safer hypothesis. As to the motive that led to the introduction of the Dei Gratia into Henry II's title, he makes an interesting suggestion. On chronological grounds he rejects Delisle's tentative hypothesis that the words came in as the result of Henry's reconciliation with the church at Avranches in 1172 ; nor is he any more favourable to Mr. Round's theory that the change of formula may have had some connexion with the changes in chancery personnel that occurred in May 1173 : this theory, he thinks, is improbable, and anyhow is inadequate as an explanation. M. Prentout himself suggests that Henry II assumed the Dei Gratia after the revolt of Young Henry in March 1173, and that he did so for two reasons : first, in order to meet his enemies' contention that his own regal authority had been abrogated by the younger Henry's coronation in 1170, and secondly, in order to employ a title exactly similar in form to that used by the chancery of the French king, and thereby to claim for his own crown the same dignity and divine sanction as were claimed by the Capetians for the crown of France. There is one unfortunate misprint : ' 1170-1171 ' on p. 8 (1. 4) should read ' 1171-1172 '. J. G. E. The Lives of the Avignon popes edited by Baluze in 1693 are an indis- pensable collection, but seldom to be seen except in great libraries. It was therefore much to be desired that the work should be reprinted. In 1 Ante, xxiii. 79 83.
