Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/162

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.

154 SHORT NOTICES January of George Wishart (p. 176) was penned, not by Knox, but by Tylney, although it is quoted by Laing in his edition of The Works of John Knox (vL 671). Archbishop Hamilton's catechism was published in 1552, not 1551 (p. 195). Andrew Melville was the uncle, not the brother, of James Melville (p. 278). J. D. M. Dr. Georg Brodnitz of the university of Halle is engaged in editing a series of handbooks of the economic history of the European nations. The first to appear is that dealing with English economic development in the middle ages, for which the editor is himself responsible, Englische Wirtschaftsgeschichte, vol. i (Jena : Fischer, 1918). Origins of economic institutions and the early development of economic systems are considered briefly and perhaps, considering their complexity, rather inadequately. Thus the origin of the borough is very cursorily dismissed, while the difficult question of the origin of the customs, upon which Dr. Gras of Clark University, Mass., has worked for many years, has been almost ignored. It is true that Dr. Gras's important work upon the early English customs system only appeared in the same year as the volume before us, but it is to be regretted that Dr. Brodnitz did not make use of Dr. Gras's article upon the origin of the national customs revenue which was printed in the Quarterly Journal of Economics as early as 1912, and which throws an entirely new light on the subject. A few errors are only to be expected in so comprehensive a work ; the author has surely misunderstood Mr. Round's theory of knight service when he says (p. 196) that every fief has to hold in readiness ten knights for forty days' war service. He is thinking, no doubt, of the constabularia of ten knights which formed the basis of, but was not necessarily itself, the servitium debitum. Again, in spite of the convincing article by Mr. Stevenson * the triple burden imposed on the Anglo-Saxon freeman is still spoken of as the trinoda instead of the correct trimoda necessitas. The most valuable portion of the volume is that devoted to the beginning of English capitalism and the development of foreign trade in the later middle ages ; Dr. Brodnitz has entered more fully into this branch of his subject and has incorporated into his book the results of recent research both of English and foreign scholars. The usefulness of the book is greatly increased by the numerous references to authorities supplied in the foot-notes. A. L. P. Mr. E. Lipson's English Woollen and Worsted Industries (London : Black, 1921) is the first instalment of a new series of ' Histories of English Industries ' designed, according to the author's general preface, ' to meet the needs of Training Colleges, Continuation Schools, Workers' Tutorial Classes, and all similar institutions in whose curriculum the serious study of Indus- trial History is given its proper place '. As the author of a valuable article on the sources of the medieval history of the woollen trade, Mr. Lipson has dealt with his subject in a scholarly manner, although the reader would sometimes welcome more detailed bibliographical indications and the references of the text to the ' bibliographical note ' in appendix ii can seldom be substantiated. The main lines of industrial develop- 1 Ante, xxix. 689.