1920 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 265 repetition of tlie roll already in print. If he will trust more to the criticism of his text and less to his power of reading, he will avoid the many trivial errors, which seem to make Dr. Cannon's work much worse than it really is. C. G. Crump. Le Bailliage de Vermandois aux xiii^ et xjy^ Siecles. Par Henri Waquet. (Bibliotheque de I'Jficole des Hautes ifitudes, Sciences historiques et philologiques, fasc. 213.) (Paris : Champion, 1919.) In this admirable study M. Waquet has advanced the administrative history of medieval France. He has concentrated his attention upon Vermandois, whose bailliage was the ' first and most notable in the king- dom ', the chief prize of the civil service. He has been able to give precision to previous work, to amplify the conclusions of such recent writers as Dupont-Ferrier, Gravier, and Tixier. The material available for study is extensive, and some of the more important text-books of contemporary custom and practice were written by men who were at |one time bailiffs of Vermandois. Pierre de Fontaines, author of Le Conseil, was bailiff in 1253 ; Philip, lord of Beaumanoir, who wrote the Customs of the Beau- vaisis, was bailiff in 1289, having previously been seneschal of Poitou ; Jean Boutillier, author of the Somme Rurale, had the office a century later. The starting-point in the general history of the French hailliages is the . ordinance of 1190, preserved in the chronicle of Rigord, and recently reprinted by M. Delaborde in the Recueil des Actes de Philifpe-Atujuste} ' In terris nostris que propriis nominibus distincte sunt baillivos nostros posuimus, qui in bailliviis suis singulis mensibus ponent unum diem qui dicitur assisia.' To these bailiffs the prevSts were subordinate : ' In primis igitur precipimus ut baillivi nostri per singulos prepositos in potestatibus nostris ponant quatuor homines prudentes,' &c., and again, in case of delinquency, ' de prepositis nostris significent nobis baillivi nostri '. Although Philip Augustus was doubtless influenced by Norman practice, he defined the position of the bailiff with a precision unknown in con- temporary Anglo-Norman custom. In French administration the undivided responsibility of the royal official on the spot stood in sharp contrast with English developments towards local self-administration penetrated by con- tinuous interference from head-quarters. It is important to keep this distinction in mind, for the existence of a bailiffs' council, the occasional summons of the ' estates ' of the province, and the various royal expedients for the supervision and inspection of the bailiff, are apt to create a mislead- ing impression of similarity between French and English administration. For the early history of the bailliage of Vermandois M. Waquet relies largely on the researches of others, especially of M. Borrelli de Serres. The county was not definitely annexed to France until 1213, and until 1256 Peronne, one of its chief towns, formed part of the bailliage of Amiens. The centre of the bailliage of Vermandois was in fact the district of Laon, which had for ages been part of the royal domain. Again, until 1234 the bailliages of Vermandois and Senlis were in most respects administered as one. It was not, therefore, until the second part of the thirteenth century
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