250 REVIEWS OF BOOKS April tenants-in-chief in each county. On the other hand, it takes us back to the original returns, as they are transcribed in the Inquisitio Comitatus Canta- brigiensis. Mr. Farrer claims that the system which he has here adopted would give us, if generally employed, the materials ' for a much more precise descent of the ancient nobility and knightly families than is at present possible '. It is, however, doubtful whether, in practice, it would do so. Probably it would be of more value to the topographer than to the genealogist. In some ways Cambridgeshire presents an easier field of study than the average county, partly because its hidation was abnor- mally simple, and partly because, as Mr. Farrer observes, ' the lands of the respective tenants in chief descended with remarkable regularity to their respective descendants living in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries '. The county also possesses, in the Inquisitio Comitatus Cantabrigiensis and the Barnwell book, quite exceptional sources of local information. The numerous ' chart ' pedigrees in the book are a very valuable feature, and we have to thank Mr. Brownbill for an elaborate index of things as well as of persons and places. The reader is warned that the former ' is not exhaustive ', which leaves one in some doubt as to the principle of selection. Under C, for instance, we find a solitary entry,
- collectors of the aid ' (p. 91), which does not lead us to expect that this
is only one of the entries relating to the important aid for marriage of the king's sister in 1235-6 (pp. 9, 16, 21, 126, 138, 152, 157, &c). The two entries under ' Aid ' do not refer to it, nor indeed is its purpose mentioned. This point is here noticed because of Mr. Farrer's correction in the preface of the date assigned to what he terms the ' return of knights' fees ' in the Barnwell book. On collating the latter with the returns for the * aid ' the two certainly appear to be independent. Another point that is some- what perplexing is the rendering of war a as ' wer ' on p. 207, though it is left as it is on pp. 220, 261 . In the index of names one is surprised to find the well-known William ' Briwerre ' (p. 271) treated as one of a family which took its name from the heathland (de Bruera) . The variants ! Hobrug ', ' Hobrigg ', &c, represent Hubbridge in Witham, not Heybridge. Leebury and Dodenhall in Elmdon and Wendon Loughts are unidentified, but found in the text under Haslingfield and Sawston. The date of death of Robert Fitz Walter, the well-known baronial leader, seems to be wrongly given, as is often the case. On the whole, the chief use of such a work as this will be for those who do not possess the volumes — often ponderous or scarce — from which it has been compiled. One fears that such publications must now be so costly that few scholars will risk the loss that they must involve. In this instance, at any rate, there is no falling off in the handsome printing and format that one associates with the Press. J. H. Bound. Die Ars Notariae des Rainerius Perusinus. Herausgegeben von Dr. Ludwig Wahrmund. (Quellen zur Geschichte des Romisch-Kanoni- schen Processes im Mittelalter, Band III, Heft ii. Innsbruck : Univer- sitats-Buchhandlung, 1917.) This important and interesting work is an edition, preceded by an excel- lent introduction, of the Ars Notariae of Rainerius of Perugia, based in the main on a thirteenth-century Paris manuscript (Bibliotheque Nationale,
