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Scofield : A Study of the Court of Star Chamber 775 and critically chosen monographs are not the least valuable and interest- ing part of the work. Two chapters of especial interest are on " Chris- tian Relations with Heathen and INIoslems " in the Middle Ages and "Rival Commercial Empires" in more modern times. But this constant generalization and comparison costs its price in the shape of occasional strained analogies and artificial interpretations. If we declared the author's estimate of the influence of religion upon trade in the Middle Ages an exaggerated one, it might be considered simply a difference of opinion, could we not convict him out of his own mouth. He says that " Christianity reconstituted the economic life of the old world," that " Christendom was one organized society for all the pur- poses of economic life." "Christendom was extraordinarily homo- geneous. ' ' Yet, when he comes to describe trade between Christian merchants and the Mohammedan inhabitants of Morocco, he says, "It is curious to observe that there is little difference between the provisions laid down and those which were necessary for the prosecution of industry made within Christendom." In other words, it was Christianity which gave medieval trade its peculiar shape, but it had just the same shape under Mohammedanism. A safe inference would seem to be that the major premise is incorrect and that trade and religion had very little to do with one another. Similarly the contrasts of policy of the successive colonizing nations, Portugal, Holland, Spain, France, England, seem a little too symmetrical for real life, and lead one to wonder what single guiding spirit is left to characterize the latest of all colonizing nations and the one in which we have the most interest. But we cannot have broad results without some bold generalizations, and immersed as most students are for the greater part of their time in the study of details, they may well accept thankfully and without cavil the thoughtful, suggestive and original book which Dr. Cunningham has given them. E. P. Cheyney. A Study of tJic Court of Star CJiamber, largely based on Manuscripts in the British Museum and the Public Record Office. [Doc- toral dissertation, University of Chicago.] By Cora L. Sco- field. (Chicago : The University Press. 1900. Pp. xxx, 82.) This monograph is a helpful contribution to the history of English institutions and it is decidedly an encouraging product of American uni- versity training. Few subjects are more interesting or more complex than the evolution of the various courts and councils from their germ in the original magnum concilium or great curia regis of the early Norman times. Among the many hard questions connected with this develop- ment, perhaps the hardest is the problem of the origin and primitive character of the so-called Star Chamber court. The author has ap- pealed to the existing sources ; and if these have not enabled her in some vital points to reach positive demonstration, she has at any rate led us very close to the truth. Aside from the printed books, comprising state