1921 SHORT NOTICES 469 profess to be a critical study. But a short and up-to-date biography of Hildebrand was much needed, and this need M. Fliche has supplied. It is well and clearly written, and it embodies the results of recent research on the subject. Though the purpose of the book is to show Gregory's title to rank among the Baints, its author displays a praiseworthy impartiality in his judgements. It is to be regretted that he has confined himself to giving references only to the Kegister — a limitation no doubt imposed by the editor of the series ; the insertion of references to the narrative sources and to recent authorities, and the inclusion of an index, would have added greatly to the usefulness of the work. A. L. P. The Stonor Letters and Papers, 1290-1483, which Mr. C. L. Kingsford has edited with meticulous care for the Royal Historical Society (Camden Third Series, vols, xxix-xxx, 1919), is a somewhat disappointing collection. There is only one document before 1325, and that is an ordinary grant of half a virgate of land by Richard de Stonor the first to Richard de Stonor the second, and it is given simply because it is the oldest document in the Stonor papers and because the younger Richard was father of Sir John de Stonor (d. 1354), chief justice of common pleas. There are only three documents belonging to Sir John's time, and no other member of the family ' had a public career of any importance ' (p. xxxviii). Edmund de Stonor was sheriff of Berkshire and Oxfordshire in 1377-8, and his papers afford some illustrations of a sheriff's work. He and subsequent Stonors occasionally sat in parliament, but they avoided distinction in politics as successfully as they did in the French wars and the Wars of the Roses, in which, indeed, no Stonor seems to have fought until 1483, when Sir William enlisted under Buckingham's ill-starred banner and was attainted by Richard III. He escaped, however, and returning with or after Henry VII, regained his estates and was in 1492 appointed steward of the university of Oxford, though ' his local importance was hardly sufficient to have secured him the post if he had not possessed an additional recommendation as a favoured courtier ' (p. xxxv). His success seems to have consisted mainly in his marriage successively to two wealthy widows and a daughter of John Neville, marquis of Montagu, and his lineage won social and other distinction through the marriage of his granddaughter to Thomas, first Baron Wentworth of Nettlestead. Mr. Kingsford is not interested in that lady's remarkable progeny. 1 Apart from some star chamber proceedings subse- quently discovered and printed in this Review, 2 his Stonor papers end in 1483, when they were doubtless seized in consequence of Sir William's rebellion. They ' are next to the Paston Letters by far the most consider- able collection of private correspondence of the fifteenth century which has yet come to light ' (p. xxxviii). They do not, however, compare in interest or importance with the Plumpton Correspondence, more than half of which dates from the fifteenth century. There are only three letters which touch upon other than local affairs : one of tljem — a narrative of the first battle of St. Albans — has, says Mr. Kingsford, ' unwarrantably ' found its way into the Paston Letters, and the other two have been 1 See Diet. Nat. Biogr. lx. 265. 2 Ante, xxxv. 321-32.
