1921 SHORT NOTICES 303 section, which relates to the life of Odo, archbishop of Canterbury, proves that the Vita Odonis Archiepiscopi Cantuariensis which Mabillon edited was written by Eadmer, precentor of Canterbury. The paper contains few statements which invite criticism, but the description of the tenth century as an age of intellectual progress and unbroken peace is not borne out by the detailed history of that period. The early forms of the Gloucester- shire place-name Barnsley, such as the Bernesleis of Domesday, show that it cannot be identified with the Bearmodeslea of Cart. Sax. 304. The Hereford where Eanswyth received land from Bishop Deneberht is now represented by the village of Harvington in Worcestershire. Finally, although many spurious documents are certainly included in the Historia Monasterii de Abingdon, it is hardly fair to bracket Abingdon with Win- chester in a list of houses famous for the fabrication of charters. F. M. S. We have received the first volume of Dr. Joseph Mann's study of The Jews in Egypt and in Palestine under the Fdtimid Caliphs (London : Milford, 1920). The Fatimid Caliphate is perhaps most generally known as the dynasty which provoked the Crusades and upon whose ruins Saladin rose to greatness. In Muslim history the Fatimids' claim to notice is that they were direct rivals, both spiritual and temporal, of the caliphs of Baghdad. But even the Arab histories which deal with the period do not concern themselves with much beyond the political or military adventures of the personages at the head of affairs. As usual in the Arab chronicles the ordinary life of the people and common ideas of the times go more or less unnoticed. We have occasional glimpses in them of the status of the non-Muslim peoples, and suspect that, as generally in Mohammedan countries, they lived for the most part in a state of subjection, that the weight of oppression upon them varied with different monarchs, and that occasionally a Jew or Christian rose to high office in the state simply because the ruler could not trust a lieutenant of his own people to remain always content with lieutenancy. Dr. Mann's work supplies a good many details throwing light on the domestic politics of the Jews of the period. The material is mainly culled from fragmentary manuscripts found in the Genizah at Cairo, a depository of documents which has already sup- plied so valuable a literary find as the Hebrew original of Ben Sira. On the whole the value of Dr. Mann's work lies not so much on the historical as on the literary side. He has not managed to write a connected history or even to give a general picture of the period, but the details he gives help greatly to fill in the sketch of it we already have. The literary side promises to be of rather greater value, but that can only be adequately judged with the publication of vol. ii, which contains in full (as appendices) the Genizah texts mentioned in the first volume. R. L. Dr. William Farrer, to whcjse generosity the readers of this Review were indebted for its original publication in 1919, has reissued his Outline Itinerary of King Henry the First as a separate volume with the important addition of an index (London : Milford, s.a.). A renewed perusal of the work increases our opinion of its great value. Since it was first printed
