Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/578

 570 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October This leads us to say that it is in the treatment of epigraphic docu- ments that Mr. Heitland leaves most for his successors to accomplish. He treats the Lex Agraria of B. c. Ill as a purely reactionary measure without criticizing Mr. Hardy's view of its political import ; and he hardly makes as much as he might of the important documents of the imperial period, such as the Tabulae Alimentariae and the inscriptions from the African domains, in spite of the fact that he devotes special sections to them. We can hardly think, by the way, that the mention of six estates in the inscription of Ain-el-Djemala can be brought into any connexion with the story of Nero's confiscations, especially as one at least probably has no separate existence. The expression Saltus Lamianus et Domitianus seems to refer to a single property, once belonging to a Lamia, then confiscated by Domitian, and we are reminded of the facts alluded to by Juvenal in the words ' hoc nocuit Lamiaruni caede madenti'. We miss, too, a reference to the inscription of Thisbe which Rostowzew has turned to account in connexion with emphyteutic tenures. By a self-denying ordinance Mr. Heitland has excluded all special reference to Oriental countries, including Egypt, feeling unable to devote sufficient first-hand study to the papyri to justify him in drawing in- dependent conclusions. Perhaps it would have been well still further to lighten the book (and the expense to the purchaser, which is serious) by omitting the chapters on Greek agriculture, which contribute little of importance compared with the value pi his study of the Eoman world, which is great and will be lasting. H. STUART JONES. The Book of Fees, commonly called Testa de Nevill. Reformed from the earliest manuscripts by the Deputy-Keeper of the Records. Part I, 1198-1242. (London : Stationery Office, 1920.) THIS is much more than a new edition of the exchequer book known as the Testa de Nevill. The rearrangement of the material and the reformed text make it a new book, an important addition to the printed sources of medieval English history. The extent of our obligation to the deputy- keeper and his colleagues can better be estimated when the second part of the book has appeared with appendixes and index ; but the most cursory examination of the first part is sufficient to show that the debt of gratitude will be no small one. In his preface Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte makes some interesting sug- gestions on the origin of the Book of Fees. By the end of the thirteenth century the officers of the exchequer had established the practice of marking particular collections of records with symbols. One of the receptacles in the custody of the king's remembrancer was known as the Testa de Nevill ; probably it bore the drawing of a head, the head of a certain Nevill, whose features may have ' lent themselves readily to caricature '. Behind or beneath the head of Nevill were kept the returns to the inquest of 1212 and many other documents relating to knights' fees, serjeanties, and the like. When, towards the close of the reign of Edward I, a big memorandum book, filled with miscellaneous information about knights' fees and