I/O Revieivs of Books in the final bibliography. The author shows that after the Order had fulfilled its mission of military aggression and defense, it adopted an economic policy that injured the cities over which it ruled, and by causing internal dissensions weakened the Order in its struggle with Poland. The latter half of the paper deals with the two-fold policy of Albert, Grand Master in the early sixteenth century, who aimed at reforming the Order and freeing it from Polish control. The seculariz- ing of the lands of the Order is accounted for as being the method that Albert adopted to attain his political purposes. F. G. D. The English Craft Gilds and the Government. An Examination of the accepted theory regarding the Decay of the Craft Gilds. By Stella Kramer. [Studies in History, Economics and Public Law, edited by the Faculty of Political Science of Columbia University, Vol. XXIII. , Num- ber 4.] (New York, Columbia University Press, New York, 1905, pp. 152.) After a brief and somewhat inadequate introduction, surveying the decay of the gild merchant and the rise of the craft gild. Miss Kramer examines in four chapters the policy of the English government toward the craft gilds from the fourteenth to the end of the sixteenth century. A concluding fifth chapter entitled, rather too pretentiously, " English Economic Policy in the Middle Ages ", emphasizes chiefly the subordina- tion of the craft gilds to the municipality and the state. The more valu- able part of the monograph is the analysis of the acts from 1437 to 1563. In these Miss Kramer finds no sufficient evidence to support the view, held by some writers, of a settled government policy antagonistic to the craft gilds. The author has used her own eyes to read the statutes and though there are occasional slips she has on the whole judiciously interpreted the national legislation and such of the contemporary local and gild ordi- nances as she has used. Within her limited and well-chosen field she has done a useful piece of work and she is to be welcomed among the students, still too few, of English craft-gild history. It must be added, however, that in knowledge of the literature Miss Kramer shows some regrettable deficiencies. Edwin F. Gay. Les Sonrces dc I'Hisfoire dc France. XVI'-' Sicde ( i^o.f-i6io). Par Henri Hauser, Professeur a I'Universite de Dijon. I. Les Pre- mieres Guerres d'ltalie: Charles VIII. et Louis XII. (1404-1315). (Paris, Alphonse Picard et Fils, 1906, pp. xx, 197.) " Ce n'est pas sans une reelle apprehension que j 'avals accepte I'offre tres honorable qui m'etait faite de preparer, pour le XVI^ siecle, la suite de ces Sources de I'Histoire de France, si brillamment et si solidement etudiees, en ce qui concerne le Moyen Age, par Auguste Molinier. Le voisinage d'un tel maitre, rompu depuis si longtemps aux travaux critiques, ctait fait pour effraver les moins timides."
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