Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/133

 1920 BE VIEWS OF BOOKS 125 that privy seals ' were delivered and payment to the messengers made in the Exchequer '. It is presumed that no allusion is intended to cases where the wardrobe, as it usually did, paid its own messengers by assign- ments on the exchequer of receipt, since these cases ought to appear in the wardrobe books. On verifying the reference to the issue roll (172, n. 9) it appears that in the term in question four writs addressed to earls were on a particular occasion issued to and delivered by the usher of the exchequer, who received 35. 6d. for his trouble. Here the fact is correct, the implication misleading. In another place (pp. 403-4) we read that in 1315 * Lady de Vescy had apparently ceased to be a source of annoyance or danger, though an excess of an extent held by her was to be resumed'. It would be difficult for the reader to guess that the Calendar of Fine Rolls (p. 242) which is cited contains a remission to the lady of an annual sum in excess of the extent of certain manors. What appears to have happened is that Lady de Vescy ceded Bamborough Castle to the king for an equivalent in lands elsewhere and that the valuation of these lands was higher than that of Bamborough, so that she was liable for the difference between the values at the exchequer, and that this annual adjusting payment was now remitted. It is more important to visualize the normal procedure by induction from a large body of continuous practice than to accumulate details without establishing whether or not they fairly represent what actually happened in ordinary cases, and the risk of falling into this trap is greatly augmented by the practice of making and sorting reference slips without thorough revision of the material as a whole. Much modern historical work, EngHsh, French, German, and especially American, is injured by this defect in method, and it must not be supposed that the book under review is at all exceptional in this matter, although the author, for reasons entirely honourable to him, has had less opportunity than earlier writers to smooth over the minor irregularities which lay him open to attack. It is only fair to say that the investigation of many seeming inaccuracies has shown that the statements made by Mr. Davies were sufficiently supported by the authorities vouched, and that the cases quoted are not to be regarded as tjrpical. We may fairly hope that so much energy and industry, combined with a lively interest in administrative processes, may some day give us a work equal in importance to Madox's History of the Exchequer. Charles Johnson. Year Books of Edward II. Vol. xv : 6 and 7 Edward II, 1313. Edited by W. C. BoLLAND. The Selden Society. (London : Quaritch, 1918.) Unlike many other pubhshing societies, the Selden Society has not stopped altogether by reason of the war, though its volumes appear tardily and at irregular intervals. Already vol. xi of the Year Book Series appeared as the subscribers' quota for 1915, while vols, ix and x are still ' in course of preparation '. And now vol. xv is put before the public when vol. xiii, promised for 1917, is still ' in the press '• and we are not specifically told that vol. xiv is even ' in preparation '. In the present issue Mr. BoUand worthily carries on the great edition of the Year Books which F. W. Maitland began with such remarkable