Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/126

 118 REVIEWS OF BOOKS January remarks that the text is mat redige, but some slight and justifiable emenda- tions will make sense. For existenti (Mortier, iii. 655, n. 1, 1. 11) read extranei and for Yberniam and Scotiam read Ybernici and Scotici. Then Father Jarrett's c would mean : No Englishman is to be promoted to a degree at Oxford or Cambridge in the vacancies reserved for foreigners, Irishmen, or Scots. Father Jarrett (p. 86) gives a travesty of Father Mandonnet's theory an to the origin of the Franciscan Orders ; but the theory itself, though ingenious and attractive, is hard to reconcile with the known facts, and the question is rather outside the scope of this book. The ' last reprint ' of Thomas Stubbs's Chronicle was not in 1652, but in 1886 in Raine's Historians of the Church of York (p. 95). An odd blunder occurs in the account of Nicholas Trivet, whose 'signature was appended [February 1315] to a condemnation ... of the opinions of Wiclif ' (p. 96). Only less surprising is the statement that Trivet's ' authorities are all quoted ' in his annals. The first part of the annals is based on Robert of Torigni and William of Newburgh, the last part on Walter of Hemingburgh : none of these sources are mentioned. It is surely more than an exaggeration to say that in the middle ages ' Hebrew was a general accomplishment for any biblical scholar ' (p. 99). When Father Jarrett says (p. 101) that the idea of converting the Saracens ' suddenly dawned upon ' the Dominican Order at the beginning of the fourteenth century he seems to have forgotten the establishment of the studium Arabicum by Raymond of Pennafort. The idea was constantly present to and constantly acted on by the Francis- cans from the time of St. Francis. The statements on pp. 125-6 (cf. also pp. 64) require some sorting out. John Montagu was Dominican prior of London. The friar whom Dean Prophet wanted to secure as lector to a friary at Hereford was John David, who was probably the Franciscan of that name who became provincial minister, not (as Palmer assumed) the Dominican of Guildford who was ordained priest in 1388. Prophet's letters are addressed to the provincial and chapter and there is nothing to show whether the Dominican or Franciscan Order is meant. But he claims that he and his predecessors the dean and chapter of Hereford were ' part founders of your house at Hereford ', and this could hardly apply to the friars preachers, since the dean and chapter fought tooth and nail for many years against their establishment in Hereford : further Prophet, in his will, left a legacy to the Franciscans of Hereford and none to the Dominicans. In his interesting chapter on ' Observance V Father Jarrett expresses the view that poverty and the consequent necessity for begging were the principal causes of the decline in the vigour and efficiency of the order. He makes a gallant and not altogether unsuccessful attempt to prove that the struggle of the English province against the master and chapter general at the end of the fourteenth century was not a national or parti- cularistic movement against foreign influence (as argued by Mortier), but an effort to preserve the discipline of the province against the mis- 1 On p. 134 reference should have been given to the full text of the accusations against the friars preachers in 1314 printed ante, v. 107, vi. 752. Stephen (not Simon) de Sydolvesmere does not seem to have been a friar.