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 442 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July with the part from 891 to 931.. We might therefore have supposed that this Catalogue had not been added to the Liber Pontificalis at the time when Benedict wrote, but for the fact that in dealing with the deposition and death of John XII (963-4) he expressly refers to the Liber Episcopalis, a term which is elsewhere known to be applied to the Liber Pontificalis. Now it is remarkable that whereas the Catalogue contains only four brief additions of a local or personal character before the appointment of John XII, from this time it assumes the form of an historical narrative, which is continued more or less down to John XV (985-96). Afterwards these historical additions are discontinued and not resumed until the middle of the eleventh century. It may therefore be inferred that the amplified Catalogue was compiled under John XV's successor, Gregory V (996-9). This suggestion is supported by a piece of external evidence ; for the form of the Catalogue common to the Italian manuscripts and to the German redaction, as found in Herman of Reichenau, did not extend beyond John XV. 1 Signor Zucchetti, who has not observed these points, argues on other grounds that Benedict's chronicle, the end of which is now lost, originally ran as far as 998 and was completed about 1000. If our view is correct, it would appear that the amplified Catalogue was not in his hands when he wrote the earlier part of his work, but became known to him when in the last years of the century he composed his narrative from John XII onwards. This result, if accepted, has a not unimportant bearing on the value of the best-known section in Benedict's chronicle, the account of this pope and of Otto the Great's dealings with him. Since Dr. von Ottenthal published ah elaborate analysis of the materials in 1893 2 it has been generally held that the narratives of these events given by Liudprand, the continuator of Regino, the amplifier of the papal Catalogue, and Benedict are all derived from an official statement issued, as is supposed, by the emperor's order. The first two of these writers are strictly con- temporary ; the two others, it would seem, are later by a full generation. There would be time therefore for the original account to undergo abridge- ment and alteration, and the details in which Benedict differs from the amplified Catalogue may be explained by his confused and inaccurate way of writing, though he supplies one or two new facts from personal knowledge. Signor Zucchetti has added to his edition of Benedict a reprint of the little Libellus de Imperatoria Potestate, which Pertz, by an incredible lapse of judgement, believed to be by the same writer. The difference between the barbarity of Benedict's grammar and the relatively pure style of the Libellus ought to have saved him from this mistake. The work is known only from the edition published by Flacius Illyricus in 1556, and no manuscript of it has since come to light. The new editor therefore is dispensed from any preliminary problems ; he has merely to reproduce the editio princeps and note occasional emendations suggested by Goldast and Pertz. As to the date of the treatise there has been a diversity of 1 See Duchesne, introd. to Lib. Pontif. ii, p. xvi a. 2 31ittheilungen des Instituts fur Oesterreichische Geschichtsforschunsf, Erganzungs- band iv. 32-76.