Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/580

 572 REVIEWS OF BOOKS October had considerable experience of the collection of aids, scutages, and other forms of taxation, and there is no evidence that they required the Book of Fees for this particular purpose in 1302. As Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte points out, the persons in charge of the aid were entrusted in 1303 with all the old rolls concerning the fees of diverse persons in the several counties of England, together with copies of the lists of all fees entered in the Ked Book. These were distributed under seal in 1303 and duly returned. It is of course possible that the collection of the aid had been planned for some time and that the treasurer and keeper of the wardrobe had ordered the transcription of the documents which might be required, before they were withdrawn from the care of the remembrancer. On the other hand, is it not equally possible that the compilation of the Book of Fees was suggested by more general considerations ? The political attitude of Edward I involved his administrators throughout his reign, and not least during the regime of Langton and Drokensford, in a series of practical historical investigations. When, for example, he insisted that scutage was a tax which must be paid on all fees, he invited endless disputes and appeals to records. 1 The insistence upon feudal rights and duties kept the officials of the exchequer very busy. The documents in the Testa de Nevill and similar records were in frequent request. They were to a large extent irreplaceable. In the interests of departmental efficiency it was well that they should be copied out and so made readily accessible. Whatever the immediate purpose of its compilation may have been, it must have required for its safe interpretation officials of long experience and considerable sagacity. Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte reserves for his second volume the critical examination of the quaternions which make up the Book of Fees, but he says quite enough in his preface to show what a slovenly piece of work it was. Judged even by medieval standards, it gives a poor impression of the intelligence of William of Coshell. If William is to be identified with the treasurer's remembrancer of 1324, 2 we may hope that he was a young man in 1302, feeling his way among strange materials. He was certainly an industrious clerk, and cannot be blamed if he did not approach a distasteful task in a mood of intelligent curiosity. The materials were scattered as time went on, and much was lost ; but Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte has been remarkably successful in tracing and collecting them again. The survivors now form a distinct class of documents in the Eecord Office. As the manuscript of the Book of Fees and the edition of 1807 (which respects the arrangement of the manuscript) are so full of perplexities, due to repetitions, diversity of plan, disregard of chronology, the latest editors have decided to ' reform ' the whole work, and so far as is possible to make the originals the basis of their text. Sir Henry Maxwell-Lyte informs us in his preface that the Latin text has been prepared by Mr. C. G. Crump, whose name is a guarantee of sound and scholarly work. The old order has been discarded, and the material arranged chronologically with valuable prefatory notes. As we have said, the result is a new book, so new that there is no logical reason 1 Cf. Miss Helena Chew's article in the July number of this Review, pp. 321 ff. above, especially pp. 333-4. 2 Tout, The Place of Edward II in English History, p. 349.