Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/621

 Gerland : Geschichte von Konstantinopel 6ii nificance for students that are not already well acquainted with the field in which her work has lain. Thus, the demesne land consisted mostly of considerable blocks, and little of it lay in scattered strips in the open fields; much of this land also was cultivated more than two successive years. Again, in 1272 there were only about 150 acres of land burdened with heavy services— about one-eighteenth of the whole; a bondman seldom held more than five acres; and upwards of a hundred bondmen lived outside the manor. In these and other particulars Forncett seems to have dift'ered from the " typical " manor that has long figured in historical writings, and the differences deserve to be noted and inter- preted. The author was under no obligation, however, to give this interpretation. She preferred to furnish merely a clear and detailed statement of information about a single manor derived from contem- porary documents; and having done this, she deserves thanks for a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the manorial system and its decay. Thomas Walker Page. Geschichte dcs lateiiiischeii Kaiscrrcichcs von Konstantinopel. Von Ernst Gerland. Erster Teil. Geschichte der Kaiser Baldidn I. und Heinrich, 1204-13 16. ( Romberg v. d. Hohe: Im Selbst- verlag des Verfassers. 1905. Pp. vii, 264.) This is part of volume II. of a Geschichte der Frankcnhcrrschaft in Griechenland, but is published before volume I. Dr. Gerland intends the first volume to contain a history of the Fourth Crusade, and volume III. and the later volumes the history of the lesser states, the Venetian and Genoese colonies, and the rule of the Knights of St. John at Rhodes. Of especial interest is the author's statement that he hopes in the final volume of the whole work to discuss the economic history of the period and its bearing upon the general course of events. For ten years Gerland has been working on this history. To him has been intrusted the duty of making serviceable to scholars the wealth of material left by Hopf. As is well known, Hopf was unsurpassed in his ability for collecting data from the most varied sources, and had a wonderful fund of information. Unfortunately he seems to some extent to have been swamped by the wealth of his material. He produced only fragments of the great work which he had planned. Since his death his apparatus has been in the hands of Streit, then of Rohricht, and is now at the Royal Library at Berlin. Every student of the period must feel gratified that an able scholar is at length in a position to make use of the results of Hopf's labors. Yet Gerland's task is not a mere reworking of Hopf's manuscript. Any one familiar with the latter's methods realizes that his material must be rearranged so that a pragmatic history may be written, as it is at present an undigested mass, arranged chronologically. Moreover, only a scholar who is well equipped for the task could make such use