Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/618

 610 SHORT NOTICES October graphical assistance consists in meagre lists of authorities at the conclu- sion of each chapter. These are unsatisfactory, often referring the reader to obvious books of reference or encyclopaedia articles. There is scarcely an allusion to recent works on the period. Possibly the author has over- looked them, for he tells us in the preface, ' Of recent years comparatively little interest has been displayed in the Middle Ages '. As a matter of fact the quantity of important work done upon medieval history, even during the years of the war, is by no means inconsiderable. A table of contents would have been a useful addition to the book. A. L. P. Le Carte degli Archivi Reggianifino al 1050, edited by Professor Pietro Torelli (Reggio-Emilia : Pubblicazione a cura della R e . Deputazione di Storia Patria, Sottosezione di Reggio-Emilia, 1921), is a collection of 185 documents, beginning (if we exclude the forged privilege of Gregory the Great which opens the volume) with the year 767. The early part of the book is disappointing, for of the first seventy documents only five represent new material. These are private documents ranging from 926 to 976. Most of the others have been printed in full by Muratori, Ughelli, Tiraboschi, Schiaparelli, and others ; and of the rest six have been published in part ; and six calendared. On the other hand, in the 115 documents from 981 to 1050 the proportion is entirely reversed : for of these only twelve have been published in full and twenty-nine in part ; so that seventy-four of the number make their appearance for the first time. The main strength of the collection lies in the private documents, which throw a welcome light on local history in an obscure period. One feature about the book deserves mention : it is produced at the expense of the Banca Agricola Commerciale di Reggio-Emilia, to commemorate the tenth anniversary of its foundation. This is an example which might well be followed in England. D. The Collected Historical Works of Sir Francis Palgrave, K.H., edited by his son, the late Sir R. H. Inglis Palgrave, are completed by the publication of vols. viii-x (Cambridge : University Press, 1922). The inclusion in the series of vol. viii, ' Truths and Fictions of the Middle Ages ', which contains two historical tales, one of them not previously printed, may seem hard to reconcile with the title given to the collection ; but Mr. A. Hamilton Thompson, in an excellent introduction, has so gracefully dealt with a number of statements which need to be ' somewhat modified ' in the light of more recent study that the volume recovers an historical character. In vols. ix and x we are presented with the ' Reviews, Essays, and other Writings ' which came from Palgrave's pen between 1814 and 1843. They include the valuable introductions to the Rotuli Curiae Regiae (1835) and to the Ancient Kalendars and Inventories of the Treasury of His Majesty's Exchequer (1836). Mr. H. E. Maiden, who has edited these volumes with notes and introductions, remarks about three of the articles here reprinted that they ' are in effect preliminary studies upon the subjects of Palgrave's well-known volumes on the History of England in the Anglo-Saxon Period, the History of Normandy and England, and the English Commonwealth '. This observation was well worth making : it warns the reader that the