Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/133

 Lapslcy : The County Palatine of Dnrhani i 2 3 contribution. His constitutional history is literary — not to say jour nalistic. He has relied on the works of Robertson, Skene and Innes drawing freely, for analogies — which he sometimes regards as proof— upon the writings of Bishop Stubbs and Professor Maitland. These au thorities, unfortunately, he has not always read with care. He is capable for example, of likening Celtic tribal land held in common ownership to the Anglo-Saxon folcland of Kemble's dreams (p. 82), although Vino gradoff's teaching has reached him through Maitland (p. 86). Again he writes of peers of the realm in the eleventh century (p. 94) and of "the important %.z..vA.q. de tallagio non concedendo" (p. 185). On the intricate question of boroughs (p. 145 and App. D.) an amateur is less to be blamed for going wrong, but if Mr. Lang had consulted Professor Maitland's Township and Borough he would have seen that the views ad- vanced in Domesday Book and Beyond have not passed unquestioned. An understanding of the nature of tallage would have resolved the diffi- culty raised (p. 147) by the burghal contribution to the ransom of William the Lion. This lack of training is further betrayed in the ap- plication of the title of Dauphin to the heir of Philip Augustus (p. 119), and in the ingenuous belief implied on page 253 that the Lex Salica pro- vides that women shall not succeed to the crown of France. A few misprints have also been remarked. Henry II. for Henry I. (p. 128J, Carlaverock {qx Caerlaverock (pp. xxi, 189), Loraine iox lor- raine (p. 30S). On the whole one fails to understand why, with Mr. Hume Brown's excellent work already in the field, the present book should have been put forth. Gaillard Thomas Lapsley. Tlic County Palatine of Durham. A Study in Constitutional History. By Gaillard Thomas Lapsley, Ph.D. (New York and Lon- don : Longmans, Green and Co. 1900. Pp. xii, 380.) The author well calls his book A Study ; each chapter is a particular study of its field. It is only as a series of studies that so much of detail as constantly appears can find justification. Investigation in detail is of course the sort of work expected in the Harvard Historical Studies, to which the subject of this review belongs. Had the work been published as a history, it would have been open, on this point, to obvious criticism, which the author's modesty and good sense have disarmed. The dis- tinction is worth drawing and emphasizing, and Dr. Lapsley deserves thanks for observing it and so helping it on. But this praise must itself be seasoned with criticism. Surely there is a distinction between the work of the antiquary and that of the student of constitutional history. The pursuit of details as such is not the work of the latter ; and one would not have to go far to feel that the author has sometimes lost his place. The origin of the Durham palatinate in the darknesss of pre-Norman England has possibly some value in consti-