Paris: Champion. 1007.)" M. S<EHK£B has here ooritinued tho studies of which he published ft nret instalment in the Positions du This** of the Eool* dee Charteg for 1891. EDfl work is admirably thorough, giving lift* of all the known copies of documents ertn in owes where tbe original exists and hae been consulted. It ii not hie fault that the hamtt tarns oat to be imalL The catalogue contains only 136 notices, some of which refer to lost documents; and while In some curious details it

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... tes or supplement* the narratives of tbe chroniclers the amount of n«w information' which it affords is smalL It is interesting to compare this catalogue with thai of Angevin documents recently publish ad by M. Halphen. 1 Sine* there exist a certain number of charters to which both Henry I and Geoffrey M&rtel are parties the two collections overlap. It ia difficult, upon examining the points of contact, to avoid the oonoliudon that M. Soshnee in his relatively narrow field of inquiry shows greater thoroughnetfl than his colleague. No. 70 in tbe collection of M. Halphen corresponds to no. 71 in the present work. M. Bcehnee has unearthed the original, while M. Halphon merely cites a copy ; and in his analysis H. Halphen omits to notice that the grant ia confirmed by Henry I and Thibault of Blois, M. Halphen furthermore adopts without explanation the date oonjecturaUy assigned by MabOle; bat M. Ekshnee discusses and rejects this date. There are, in the collection of M. Scohnee, analyses of four documents (no*. 98, 106, 107, 115) which have a bearing upon Angevin history but are not catalogued by M. Halphen, Finally, if w» compart no. Ill in the catalogue of M. Halphen with no, 91 In that of M. Soihneeit is at-once apparent thai we are dealing with one and'the same document. But M. Soahnee calls attention to its most interesting feature, the mention of a Franldsb form of manumission : the so-called royal form, in which the chief ceremony is that of knocking a coin out of the freedman'B hand. It must not be supposed that the student canaflbrd to rely eiclosively upon the catalogue of M. Soshnee, Careful though he is he sometimes omits to notice a fact of first-rate importance. In the case of the document last cited he ignores the attestation { at Geoffrey Martel; and similarly in np. 81 he does not tell us that Robert of Burgundy here appears as one of the king's assessors in a plaid royaL So little Is known about the relations of the great feudatories with the early Oapets that thaw attestations have a real value for historians. It is indeed a matter for regret that the editors of French catalogues should make a point of omitting lists of witnesses even when they are describing unpublished materials. We naturally tarn to such a catalogue for fresh light on Norman history. Bat the results of the search are disappointing. It is sugges-I* ComU fAi&m a* XP SUeU, pp. 287 fl.