Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/589

 1922 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 581 The Cassel book, at all events, is a register made by Losse on a definite plan. First come the documents about the quarrel between the pope and the emperor, including some legal opinions, not known to be printed, as to their relations. Another part of the register was devoted to Losse's own family and personal affairs. Another part contained precedents useful to him in his official capacity as clerk and notary. A rigid chrono- logical arrangement introduces chaos into this well-ordered world. It would surely have been better to retain the original classification and to print the documents from the Darmstadt book and the numerous originals as supplementary to the sections with which they are most closely related. Again, there is something to be said for giving, in addition to the date, an indication of the nature of documents printed elsewhere, which are not invariably accessible, at least to English readers. But the most trying virtue of the book is the minute accuracy of its textual criticism. When a document is printed in full, an attempt is made to give it verbatim et literatim as it occurs in the manuscript. In some cases space is saved by omitting familiar phrases, which are replaced by a single asterisk to mark the omission. Words supplied by the editor are enclosed in square brackets. Cancellations are marked by angular brackets, interlineations by smaller angular brackets above the line. Illegible passages are rendered by dots within square brackets. First and last words of omitted passages are connected by a dash. Abstracts or editorial remarks are in italics. Where a document is based on another document the passages common to the two are in smaller type. The resulting text is, especially where a draft has been much corrected, most difficult to read : worse than Palgrave's Record Commission texts with their strange symbols. Moreover, the faults of the manuscripts are faithfully reproduced, even when the scribe might have had the benefit of the doubt. There seems to be no need, for instance, to print gemiflexione (no. 174), or eximiarum for exenniorum (no. 306). And in no. 43, where sex is twice printed for vel, the text might have been corrected and the manuscript reading given in a. note. In some cases the editor's sense of the meaning seems to be at fault, e. g. 23 of no. 75, where the manu- script has incentinuum, which is printed as incontinuum instead of in- centivum, or 7 of no. 408, where potentes in the manuscript, which makes excellent sense, is emended to patet. It is much to be regretted that an effort was not made to print a legible text and to confine the critical notes to significant variations. The volume is nevertheless very interesting, and contains many notable points. Thus no. 83, attributed to Nicholas of Butrinto, instructs the archbishop of Treves as to the formalities to be observed on the occasion of the Council of Vienne. No. 99 illustrates the inconvenience of being related to the condemned master of the Templars. No. 477 gives contemporary descriptions of the Great Seals of England and France, and there are many notes as to the practice of sealing documents. In Germany, at any rate, the privy seal was usually applied to the back of the letters issued under it. There are also some letters which give accounts of the persecution of the Jews in the Rhine district. Of special interest are the letter (no. 187) in which John XXII attempts to bribe