Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/127

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1920 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 119 ' indelible character ' of holy orders, while the deaconess, like the widow, the virgin, and the nun, came to be regarded as per se a lay person. But the latter was not the original view, and this volume supplies much interest- ing evidence of the sporadic survival of the more primitive tradition. It is true, as one of the contributors reminds us, that the deaconess of early days had definite ecclesiastical functions to perform, while a modern deaconess has nothing whatever to do which is not distinctly lay work, and which is not done by other lay women. But it would be historically wrong to infer from this an originally radical barrier between the male and female diaconate. For while the deacon enjoys an assured position in the ranks of the clergy, and is allowed to do some things which except in extreme emergency are forbidden to laymen, he has no distinctive function in respect of actions, which if done by a deacon are ' valid ', but if attempted by a layman are inherently mdl and void. The book is carefully printed, but we have noticed misprints on pages 90, 1. 3 (Greek spelling), 135, n. 1, and 312, 1. 1, ' benediction ' for ' benedictine '. A. Robertson Bishop. Fulcheri Carnotensis Historia Hierosolymitana. Herausgegeben von Heinrich Hagenmeyer. (Heidelberg : Winter, 1913.) FuLCHER OF Chartres, despite the popularity which his Historia Hieroso- lymitana attained from the first moment of publication, eluded the notice of his contemporaries, and is only known to us through a few autobio- graphical references in his own work. He was a native of Chartres, and he was born in the year 1059.^ It may have been in the schools of Chartres that he picked up his none too extensive knowledge of the classics ; but, as Dr. Hagenmeyer reminds us, there were libraries at Jerusalem which he had every opportunity of studying in later life. We know nothing of Fulcher's life before he started on the First Crusade. He may have been present at the council of Clermont in 1095, but the passage usually cited to prove this fact is clearly insufficient for the purpose ; ^ and his description of the council, good though it is, may have been compiled from information supplied by others. He started for the Holy Land in October 1096, with the North French army, which was commanded by Stephen of Blois, Robert of Flanders, and Robert of Normandy. A year later we find him installed as a chaplain in the household of Count Baldwin, the future Baldwin I,^ whose acquaintance he probably made in the course of the march through Asia Minor. Owing to this connexion he left the main body before Antioch was reached, and therefore cannot be identified with that Fulcher of Chartres who was the first to scale the walls of Antioch, Until his patron succeeded to the throne of Jerusalem, Fulcher was absorbed in the thrilling but relatively unimportant events of the Edessa expedition. But he followed Baldwin to Jerusalem in 1100,* and appears to have resided there for the best part of the next twenty-seven years. He took part in several of the campaigns of Baldwin I. In 1100 he shared in the march to

  • I, c. 5 ; III, c. 44. We refer to the chapters of the new edition.

» I, 0. 4. » I, c. 14. * II, c. 3.