morial bearings, devices, and legends upon them; where a seal is wanting the fact is indicated, and the endorsements on every document are given with a proper explanation as to whether they are contemporary or modern. In short, this work might be safely taken as a model for that new edition of the Fœdera which we so greatly need, and may possibly have at some remotely future time. The only objection which occurs to us after a careful examination of the collection is, that the greater portion of the first volume is filled with papal bulls and rescripts, dating from the ninth to the thirteenth century, few of which possess much historical value; they are for the most part couched in the vaguest terms, and rarely afford any illustration of national history, ecclesiastical or secular, at the time of their publication.
The English student who may take up these volumes will naturally seek in the first instance for matters which bear upon the history of his own country, but in that respect they are singularly uninteresting, for with the exception of a letter from Anselm archbishop of Canterbury congratulating Ascer on his election to the see of Lund, and a charter of Henry the Third, previously known by an enrolment in the Tower, there is no direct evidence of the nature of the relations which existed between Sweden and England from the twelfth century downwards. Indeed it could scarcely be otherwise; commerce between the two countries was long restricted to a small trade in grain exported from the ports on our eastern coast, and the communication between the princes of the respective countries was for centuries confined to the occasional present of a falcon from the Swedish king for which the English sovereign made a complimentary return.
The intercourse between Sweden and France, as exhibited by these volumes, was frequent and intimate; it had its origin in the fame of the University of Paris, which attracted to its schools the youth of all the northern regions of Europe, not even excepting England. There the Swedes had a quarter which bore their name; and there their churchmen were imbued with that scholastic divinity of which Paris was long reputed to be the most orthodox source; and as a necessary consequence, they carried back to their northern home a tinge of the manners, the language, and the civilization of that country, which was then, as now, one of the most polished in Europe. Hence the shade of Gallic phraseology which pervades Swedish diplomata in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. Moreover, this connection with France had an immediate influence upon the state of the arts in Sweden: the ecclesiastics, who had received their education at Paris, learned to admire the superior elegance of design which distinguished the churches of southern Europe: thus when the ancient cathedral of Upsala was burnt at the close of the thirteenth century, its reconstruction was not confided to native skill; the thoughts of the chapter turned to foreign models; and Etienne de Bonneville, "taillieur de pierre," or carver in stone, was invited from Paris to build the new edifice; he was licensed to depart, with six assistants, by the provostry of that city, A.D. 1287. Nevertheless, it must not be supposed that the style of the Swedish
