Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/587

 1922 REVIEWS OF BOOKS. 579 Venetian dominions, which amounts to saying that all conformed to the principles of Roman law. Judging from this volume there is good reason to believe that the publication of the acts of Italian parliaments will be of great interest both from the point of view of institutional and political history. C. FOLIGNO. Nova Alamanniae, Urkunden, Briefs und andere Quellen besonders zur deutschen Geschichte des 14. Jahrhunderte. Herausgegeben von EDMUND E. STENGEL. 1. Halfte. (Berlin : Weidmann, 1921.) THIS stout volume of over 400 pages is the larger portion of a collection of documents extending from the year 1143 to 1364 derived mainly from two manuscripts preserved, one in the State Archives at Darmstadt, the other in the State Library at Cassel. The portion now issued comes down to March 1339 ; the later documents, with some German and Latin poems of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the introduction, and the index, are reserved for the second portion. The Darmstadt volume, which has been long known, though never completely published, consists mainly of drafts ; that at Cassel, a new discovery, of copies. Herr Stengel first intended to print the latter, which only extends to 1344, but found the two so intimately connected that he decided to treat them together, adding such documents of Rhenish or South German origin as appeared to be originals of those appearing in the two books, or otherwise closely allied to them. Both books belonged to a clerk of Baldwin of Luxemburg, archbishop of Treves, by name Rudolf Losse, who was one of the commissioners appointed to treat with Henry de Burghersh, bishop of Lincoln, and other envoys of Edward III, when the latter pledged the English crown to secure the payment to the archbishop of 61,000 gold florins as the price of his assistance in 1339. The actual agreement is printed in Ryrner under the date 27 February, and Herr Stengel gives us Losse's draft of it, which presents some material differences from the Darmstadt book. We get some idea of the career of a medieval civil servant from the personal documents in this collection. Most of these relate to the suc- cessive benefices in the dioceses of Treves and Mentz which Rudolf held, or to dispensations and faculties granted to him. But there are a few more picturesque touches. Thus, we find him at Avignon in 1328 successfully soliciting, as a ' poor clerk ', a preference over other provisors, holding provisions of earlier date, with respect to the first vacant prebend in the collegiate church of Ohrdruf. In 1330 he is at Montpellier, presumably studying canon law at the university there. He buys from an English resident of Avignon called Robert Anglicus, for 8 li, 8 s. Tournois (about 2 2s. Od. sterling), the commentary of Guy de Baysio, archdeacon of Bologna, known as the ' Archdeacon ' on the Sext. The transaction is witnessed by the bedell or ' bancarius ' of the university. He seems to have entered the service of Archbishop Baldwin as his clerk and notary in 1332, and to have been employed on various diplomatic missions, both to Avignon and to some of the German princes. In 1334 he was Pp2