Page:Englishhistorica36londuoft.djvu/461

 1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 453 about in Mr. Orpen's book there are numerous hints and references which show that he might easily have given us a picture of a great lordship far more convincing and detailed than, e.g., his useful sketch of the liberty of Carlo w (iv. 264 ff.). One wants to know so much more about the changes which took place in these lordships during the thirteenth century, about their relations with the royal officials on the one hand and with the Irish on the other. Ireland was not the only country in which, under the shadow of a central authority, feudal institutions were gradually penetrated and altered by the influence of alien customs or ideas. Similar processes were at work in the east of Europe, very similar processes indeed in the highlands of Scotland. Mr. Orpen remarks on the probable influence of the Brehon law upon legislation. He is inclined to think that the Irish practices of fosterage, coign and livery, and the like had begun to influence the feudal household by the beginning of the fourteenth century. While rejecting the conclusion drawn by Sir John Davies from the Irish petition of 1328, that the Irish as a whole were eager to adopt English law, he is disposed, in a casual and half-hearted way, to approach the problems of Anglo-Irish development along the lines marked out by that great man in his Discovery of the True Causes why Ireland was never entirely subdued (1612). Unfortunately, he does not bring his observations together nor draw out their significance. He is committed to the catastrophic view. Now the only conclusion which an impartial reader can draw from Mr. Orpen's careful study of the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce is that Bruce caused far less disturbance of a permanent kind than has hitherto been supposed. The forces which were ultimately to separate the Anglo-Irish within from those without the Pale were doubtless strengthened by the events of 1315-18, but they had begun to work before. The parliament of 1310 had already legislated on the duties of the ' cheif de graunt lygnage '. The Norman baron had become the chieftain, the capitaneus nationis. 1 The causes and extent of the change must be sought in the thirteenth century. Mr. Orpen is convinced that the period of Irish history between the invasion of Strongbow and the invasion of Edward Bruce is a complete dramatic episode ; we venture to think that his narrative breaks off in the middle of the third act. General criticism of this kind is of course debatable. It is concerned with the form and objects rather than the substance of these volumes. Experts will perhaps differ from Mr. Orpen here and there on points of detail, but we fancy that their criticism of the substance of the book will be slight. In one important respect the third and fourth volumes are less open to criticism than the first and second ; the defects in scholarship are few. The eldest son of King Philip Augustus of France should not be styled ' dauphin ' (iii. 15). The Cistercians should not be grouped with Benedictines and friars as builders of churches for congregational worship (iv. 293). The meaning of the statute of 1321 on the use in Ireland of English law of life and limb does not seem to be clearly grasped (iv. 26). In an excellent passage on the importance of the barony as a means of 1 For the French phrase cf. Berry, Early Statutes, pp. 266, 378. The Latin equiva- lent appears in charters, e. g. that of Lord William de Burgh, 1430, in Materials for the History of the Franciscan Province of Ireland, p. 185.