Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/462

454 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July completeness. We find here not only the names of authors but also of persons to whom letters are addressed, of scribes and former owners, of places to which documents relate. Moreover it is an index of subjects, including not only anonymous works arranged under appropriate titles but great groups under which whole classes are given whether the books bear the authors' names or not. Examples of both sorts will be found under ' England, Sovereigns of ', and ' England, Chronicles and General History '. As a special feature of the catalogue is the fullness with which miniatures are described, such an article as ' Art ', which fills more than twenty columns, is of unique value. If we have any complaint against the work, it is that its completeness is at times excessive. For instance, the Eltiddarium, which critical opinion now tends to attribute to Honorius of Autun, was in early days ascribed to Abailard ; it therefore appears under his name (' attrib. to '), although this is not found in any of the five Royal manuscripts of the work. The compilers were undoubtedly right in making a single general index rather than several, but we still regret that a separate list was not given of former owners persons, religious houses, and colleges to help us in tracing the process by which the library was formed. The second index is of initia or incipits in various languages. The compilers say that ' the Royal collection includes so much of the common stock of a medieval library that the Latin index will, it is hoped, be found useful by many who may wish to identify unnamed treatises '. This is too modest an aspiration : the index covers so much longer a range of centuries than those of Vattasso and Little that it must at once rank as an indispensable work of reference for students of manu- scripts. The fourth volume consists of a series of 125 plates giving beautifully reproduced facsimiles from 144 manuscripts, of which two-thirds were written, or probably written, in England. They are arranged according to the present numeration of the manuscripts, but a table is prefixed setting out the list according to the date of the writing. The volume is an important contribution to palaeography, and, did our limits allow, should claim a full review by itself. It is probably for light on the obscurer relics of medieval literature that this catalogue will be mainly consulted. The treatment of the writings variously attributed to Hildebert of Tours and to Hugh of St. Victor may be specially noted. Haureau's extremely valuable contributions to our knowledge of twelfth-century texts have been of great service to the authors, but at times (e. g. under 8 E. xvii, art. 4) they add important criticism. Some help is afforded to the discrimination of the several writers known as Thomas Wallensis by the discovery that one of them was named Hopeman (4 A. i). The attribution of the grammatical Summa in 2 D. xxx, art. 2, to Peter Hispanus, Pope John XXI, is justly suspected, 1 and the work is said to be probably by Peter Helias ; 2 it, in fact, bears 1 The fact that the manuscript was written in the thirteenth century, while the pope died in 1277, by itself casts doubt on the ascription. 2 The reference to Notices et Extraits den Manuscrits, xxii, should be corrected to xxii, part ii. The citations of this great quarto collection are not always distinguished from those of Haureau's separate Notices et Extraits de quelques Manuscrits.