REVIEWS OF BOOKS BOOKS OF ANCIENT HISTORY La Campagna Romana, Antica, Medioevale e Moderna. By GIUSEPPE TOMASSETTI. Volume III. Vie Cassia e Clodia, Flaminia e Tiberina, Labicana e Prenestina. (Rome: Ermanno Loescher and Company. 1913. Pp. xii, 583.) THE death of the author soon after the appearance of the second volume has left the completion of this notable work in the hands of his son. This will cause no change in the plan or character of the book, which will remain for many years the standard work of reference for the Campagna of the Middle Ages and the present. In the reviews of the earlier volumes in this journal (XV. 831, XVI. 339) the general characteristics of the book were pointed out, and the third volume presents no new features. It deals with those parts of the Campagna that are traversed by the four roads, Cassia, Clodia, Flaminia, and Tiberina, to the north of Rome, and two of those running to the southeast, the Labicana and Praenestina. This involves the description of about eighty tenute and forty communes, some of them of special interest, like Bracciano, Nepi, Sutri, Paliano, and Cave. As the territory. traversed by the Clodia and Cassia was largely under the control of the Orsini, and the Colonna had their headquarters in Palestrina, this volume contains much important material for students of the history of these great families. In general the inadequate treatment of the ancient period, noticed in the preceding volumes, is somewhat more striking here. This, however, is partly intentional, and due to the publication of Ashby's excellent papers on the Classical Topography of the Roman Campagna in the Papers of the British School at Rome. Where Ashby has already published his material, as in the case of the Labicana and Praenestina, Tomassetti simply refers to him for the discussion of the remains of antiquity, and seldom differs with him except in the identification of some ancient sites, e. g., Scaptia and Passerano (p. 506), Pedum and Gallicano (p. 516). In these cases Ashby's doubt is quite justified. In this part of the book there are some errors and some statements that might easily be challenged, as that the Porta Maggiore carries five aqueducts (p. 380), that Gabii is derived from Cabum (p. 496), that the Porta Ratumenna in Rome was between the Capitoline and Quirinal hills (p. 200), that the Ponte Lupo served only to carry the Claudian aqueduct (p. 522), and that the Ponte di Nona was built by Sulla (p. 477). The removal of Fidenae from its traditional site to a point considerably farther north on the west bank of the Tiber near Ponte Storta is not supported by cogent arguments. It is, however, with the medieval and modern periods that the author is chiefly concerned, and it is here that the great value of the book lies. In this third volume the reader is again impressed most forcibly with the astonishing amount of detailed information furnished, and with the labor that has been expended in toilsome and painstaking investigation of documents and archives. Only infrequently has the author been able to avail himself to any great degree of the work of others. To handle satisfactorily material of this amount and kind is no light task, and the book is far from being easy reading. It is ponderous in form and content, perhaps unavoidably so, but a little more care and skill in arrangement would have made it much more useful and attractive. An elaborate index will now be doubly necessary. There are some misprints, and one can not help wishing that the author would decide to be consistent in writing either monastero or monistero. S. B. P. BOOKS OF MEDIEVAL AND MODERN EUROPEAN HISTORY Canute the Great, 995 (circ.)-1035, and the Rise of Danish Imperialism during the Viking Age. By LAURENCE MARCELLUS LARSON, Ph.D., Associate Professor of History, University of Illinois. [Heroes of the Nations, edited by H. W. C. Davis.] (New York and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1912. xviii, 375.) 1912. Pp. THIS is the first treatment of the subject in English which takes into sufficient consideration the Scandinavian sources and literature. As a consequence the figure of Canute is placed in a new perspective against the Scandinavian background. Canute stands forth as the best representative of the viking age and movement (p. vii), and his career in Professor Larson's hands becomes "the history of Danish imperialism carried to a swift realisation" (pp. 2–3). This point of view not only affects the apportionment of the narrative, but also leads to significant new conclusions concerning the policies of Canute. More than half the book is occupied with Scandinavian affairs. A chapter (1.) containing a brief survey of the position of Denmark in the northern world during the tenth century, which explains the heritage of imperialistic ambition received by Canute from his ancestors, two chapters (VIII., XIII.) on Scandinavian institutions, and three chapters (IX.-XI.) on Canute's conquest of Norway, are concerned almost solely with this aspect of the subject, and it receives a prominent. place in four chapters (vI., XII., XIV., XV.) on the empire as a whole. Only three chapters (II.-IV.), dealing with the Danish conquest of England (1003-1016), and two (v., VII.), covering the early years of Canute's rule in England, are devoted primarily to English history. But, while Professor Larson thus places England in a relatively less important position in relation to Canute's career than is customary with English historians, yet it is in his account of Canute's policies as king of England, which is an expansion of an earlier article printed in this journal (XV. 720-743), that he makes his most notable contribution by developing the close connection between Canute's imperial aims and his English policy. He points out, for example, that Canute before his acquisition of the Danish crown in 1019 was an alien ruling England without the possibility of securing support from external sources. This led him, contrary to the generally accepted opinion, to rule England with a heavy hand and with little regard for the feelings of his Anglo-Saxon subjects. Not until the possession of Denmark provided him with forces which could be used to put down possible English revolt did he adopt a deliberate policy of conciliation. His ecclesiastical policy was similarly affected by his relations to Norway. Canute entered upon a lukewarm alliance with the Church in 1020, but he carefully refrained from any attempt to make Christianity compulsory. Already he had visions of adding Norway to his dominions, and one of the principal forces on which he relied for support against King Olaf consisted of those Norwegian nobles who were discontented with the effort of their king to establish Christianity as the sole religion throughout his realm. Hence it was not until Norway had been conquered in 1028 that Canute took a decided stand against the old pagan faith. These aspects of Professor Larson's work are generally excellent from the viewpoint of both the general reader and the historical student. For the latter, however, the value of the work is limited in some respects. The major portion of the narrative appears to be Professor Larson's independent estimate of the sources tempered by comparison with the opinions of the best English and Scandinavian historians, but three chapters (I., VII., XIII.) are little more than summaries of secondary authorities, and the treatment of both English and Scandinavian institutions seems somewhat inadequate. Some details also are open to adverse criticism. It is disappointing to be referred to the Danmarks Riges Historie as authority for an important statement (e. g., p. 192) since no references are cited in that work. More regard for the conclusions of recent writers, on the other hand, would have improved the treatment of a few topics. It is indiscreet, for example, after the researches of Chadwick (Studies on Anglo-Saxon Institutions, pp. 355-366), to say without. qualification that "the Old English kingship was elective" (p. 85). Occasionally an assertion is made more positively than the evidence appears to warrant. If, for example, Gunhild, wife of Ealdorman Pallig, was killed in the massacre of St. Brice's day, 1002, it is important because she was the sister of King Sweyn. Previous historians, except Munch and Steenstrup, have regarded William of Malmesbury as insufficient authority for asserting positively that she was, but Professor Larson makes the statement without explanation (p. 39) on the no better authority of Richard of Cirencester's Speculum Historiale. But these criticisms do not impugn the fundamental soundness of Professor Larson's critical interpretation of the sources. The materials available for the study are difficult to evaluate rightly, and, so far as the reviewer can judge, they have been used in the main with care and discriminating judgment. W. E. LUNT. Les Origines de l'Influence Française en Allemagne: Etude sur l'Histoire comparée de la Civilisation en France et en Allemagne pendant la Période Précourtoise (950-1150). Par LOUIS REYNAUD, Docteur ès Lettres. Tome premier. L'Offensive Politique et Sociale de la France. (Paris: Honoré Champion. 1913. Pp. xxxix, 547.) IT is a pity that a work as large as this is should be of so little historical value. Beginning with the thesis that France has had greater influence upon Germany than any other country, with magnificent scorn of actual history, the territory between the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees, is assumed to have been "France" from all time and anything and everything emanating from it, no matter what the epoch, to have been of "French" influence. 66 66 "L'image de la France", we are told, est le spectre obsédant qui hante l'histoire de la vie de société, de la littérature, de la philosophie, de l'art germanique depuis leurs origines jusqu'à notre époque. . . Sur la plus reculée des cimes que nous avons reconnues dans l'histoire de l'influence française en Allemagne plane encore la brume matinale qui recouvre les horizons de la jeune civilisation occidentale. Elle se dresse pourtant, majestueuse et distincte, dans les impressionantes solitudes de la primitive Europe." The Teutonic mythology is of Celtic origin; the German nations in Gaul were "Gallicized", not Romanized; the Franks were Gallo-francs"; the very names of their kings are "partiellement ou totalement celtiques" (M. Reynaud cites Childebert and Dagobert among other names as examples, though by the same token Ethelbert must also have been "partly Celtic "); Charlemagne was a "Gallofranc"; the Niebelungen is "Gallo-franque". In fact, "historiquement il est impossible de découvrir quoique ce soit en fait de civilisation germanique primitive, une fois qu'on a retranché les emprunts contractés auprès des Celtes. Ce qui reste ce sont les déclamations sans importance de quelques Romantiques." Alas for Waitz and Dahn and Roth and Giesebrecht! They have all read history as did Sancho Panza. After thirty-nine pages of rodomontade like this, which fills the introduction, one has little patience left when he reaches the body of the book. But in justice to the author it must be said that he occasionally gets on somewhat more tenable ground. The influence of French monasticism upon Germany through the Cluniac and Cistercian orders was great. But M. Reynaud adds nothing to what Sackur and Winter have AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XVIII.-53. already written. Nor does anyone deny the social and literary influence of French chivalry upon Germany in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. But no one of these factors more than colored the history of medieval Germany. The depth and content of German history during the Saxon, Franconian, and Hohenstaufen epochs, the great achievements of the German people apart from the monarchs who were ruling, the national genius of men like Henry the Lion, Albert the Bear, and a host of bishops like Bruno of Cologne, Bernward of Hildesheim, Wiclin of Lübeckall this utterly escapes the author. His political thesis is singular. It is that Germany never institutionally progressed beyond the Carolingian system, while France was born anew in the terrible crucible of the ninth and tenth centuries and so was able gradually to develop a real feudal monarchy (see pp. 157-158). M. Reynaud is very fond of applying the words "incomplète", "archaïque ", "rudimentaire", "pas progressé", etc., to medieval German institutions. As a whole the work is a phantasmagoria of vain imaginings and historical distortions, all the more difficult to read with patience because of the author's cocksureness. Not content with using ordinary type, time and again he employs italics -sometimes half a page at a stretch-to advertise his ideas. Page after page (cf. pp. xxxvi, 54, 63, 101, 131, 157, 158, 179, 180, 184, 205, 221, 241, 245, 252, 257, 268, 271, 291, 364, 369, 370, 428, 438, 508, 525, 531, 536, etc.) flares with categorical affirmatives which have little or no historical weight in spite of a brave display of erudition. The Minority of Henry the Third. By KATE Norgate. J. W. T. (London: THE period of a trifle more than ten years included in the minority of Henry III. is not a great period. There is very little in it, either upon the constitutional or the political side, that can be said to be of unusual significance. Probably, in permanent influence upon the future, the most important thing in these years is the development which is given to the newer methods of taxation. Into this subject Miss Norgate does not go. The reissues and the final settling of the form of Magna Carta are also of considerable importance. It would be very interesting if we could investigate fully the relation of the small council to the great council, to determine if a peculiar aspect was given to that relationship by the fact of a minority. Still more interesting would it be if we could establish the existence at this date of a council of regency. But these things we cannot do with the material now at our command. We cannot even determine conclusively the facts about the election, by the great council, of Ralph Nevill as chancellor, as asserted by Matthew Paris, though we may be reasonably convinced that no such election occurred. There is also a development going on in the law-courts during these years which as yet it is not possible accurately to describe. On the side of the political history, questions connected with the expulsion of the |