1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 105 Passiones Vitaeque Sanctorum Aevi Merovingici (Scriptorum Rerum Merovingicarum torn, vii, pars 2). Edited by B. Krusch and W. Levison. (Monumenta Germaniae Historica. Hanover : Hahn, 1920.) The first part of the seventh volume of the Scriptores Rerum Merovingi- carum 1 has been very quickly followed by the second part, which con- cludes this portion of the Monumenta. The only saint's life which it con- tains is the earlier life of Richar (on which Alcuin's life is based), part of the preface to which is in part 1. The rest of the volume (apart from the Addenda) is occupied by the interesting Libellus de Ecclesiis Claromontanis, lists of kings with a most valuable dissertation on the regnal chronology by Dr. Krusch, in which the results of the researches, of himself, Dr. Levison, the late M. Julien Havet, and others, by which the old chronology connected with the name of Mabillon has during the last forty years been almost entirely overthrown, and which have hitherto had to be sought in scattered periodicals, are brought together in syste- matic form ; the texts of that part of the work of the so-called Aethicus which relates to the Franks and of the kindred Origo Francorum Bonnen- sis ; and a Conspectus Codicum Hagiographicorum, in which no less than 842 manuscripts containing lives of Merovingian saints and other kindred documents (the exact limits are not very clearly denned) have been with amazing diligence catalogued by Dr. Levison, with an introduction in which the nature of the collections contained in different classes of manuscripts and the relations between them are clearly and scientifically set forth. This conspectus differs from the valuable Bibliographia Codd. Hagiographicorum, published by the Bollandists, in that instead of being arranged under the names of the saints so as merely to give a list of manuscripts of each life it is an actual descriptive catalogue of manuscripts arranged under the names of the places where they are now preserved. This ends the volume proper, and is followed by an appendix to the first six volumes by Dr. Krusch supplying information on the subject of the texts there published which has been obtained since those volumes appeared. Of the Acts of the Seven Sleepers by Gregory of Tours, which in vol. i Dr. Krusch edited from earlier editions only, having been unable to find any manuscripts, a new text is given; of the other texts only a collation of newly -discovered manuscripts has been published, though in the case of Gregory's Miracula, of which Dr. Krusch has now found manuscripts containing an earlier form of text formerly known to him only from the editio princeps, the collation of which occupies thirty-two pages, we cannot but wish that it had been found possible to re-edit the text. The fascicule ends with two royal catalogues previously omitted, three pages of Addenda, and an index to the volume. By far the most important parts of the present fascicule are clearly the chronology of the kings and the Conspectus Codicum, and it is to be regretted that the latter at least could not have been issued in a separate form. The chronology is of so great utility and so admirably done that I am reluctant to point out any defects in it, and that more especially since 1 See ante, xxxv. 438.
