430 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July on looking at Zotenberg we discover that' Papyris', ' Maurianus', and ' Pelagius' are conjectures. On p. 197 we have an opposite case, for the word' Matarguem' is here given as a title; and it is only in the index that we are told that it represents XoyoOtr^, while from Zotenberg we learn that the word is merely a transliteration of the Arabic matargam (inter- preter ?), and that the rendering \oyo0fnp is very doubtful. At p. 175, n. 2, we wish to know why ' the artisan guilds' are identified with the Greens. Again, in the numerous cases in which it is stated that the word is Arabic, the actual Arabic word should be given. ' Scholar' (p. 147, n. 6) is an odd rendering of

Egyptian dates by the Gregorian calendar, and this neither according http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ to the reckoning at the present day, when it differs from the Julian by thirteen days, nor according to what would have been the reckoning in the seventh century, when it would differ by three days, but according to the reckoning in' the nineteenth century, when it differed by twelve days, the synchronisms being apparently taken from Dillmann (p. 200, n. 1). As the Gregorian calendar did not come into use till 900 years after John's time, and the reckoning of events in his time'is always given by the Julian calendar, it is hard to see what purpose is served by giving at University of Arizona on September 9, 2015 the Gregorian dates. As Dr. Charles says nothing about corrections derived from the manuscripts, we must assume that he has not examined them, though, as no text is perfect, we cannot doubt that, if he had done so, he would have been able to throw further light upon the author's work; nor with regard to the original language does he do anything beyond reproducing Zotenberg's rather strange supposition of a mixed Greek and Coptic original. E. W. BBOOKS.

A Catalogue of English Coins in the British Museum: The Norman Kings. By G. C. BROOKE. 2 vols. (London : Longmans, 1916.) IT is claimed by the Keeper of Coins and Medals in the British Museum, who contributes a brief preface to these volumes, that by including descrip- tions and illustrations of important coins which are not represented in the Museum collection, they have been made ' a fairly complete work of reference on Anglo-Norman coins'. He also lays stress on the sub- ordination of the mints to the types, as reflecting the great advance which has been made of recent years in fixing the chronology of the types. The historian has need at times, especially for Stephen's reign, to ascertain from an authoritative source what was the condition of the coinage as shown by the coins themselves, and he can now obtain from these volumes the latest information on the subject. As with other sciences, that of numismatics advances, but, so far as concerns results of interest to other than numismatists, the advance is somewhat slow and tentative. In one instance, indeed, Mr. Brooke 1917 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 431 has changed his mind even while this work was passing through the press. The famous ' double-figure' type of Stephen's reign is assigned (with a query) on plate lx to ' Queen Matilda and Eustace'; but in the introduction this is corrected to ' Stephen and Queen Matilda', on the ground that' Eustace was not knighted till 1147 or 1149 ', while the coin is of earlier date by several years (i, pp. x, cviii-cx). So too, on the same plate, there is a tentative ascription of certain coins to ' Eustace, son of Stephen', but Mr. Brooke observes that' since the plate was printed, he has felt more strongly the necessity of abandoning this attribution '—

again on the ground of Eustace's age at the probable date when the coin Downloaded from was issued—and he now assigns them to Eustace Fitz John (i, p. cxiii). This leads us to a point which has been definitely established. Since 1890 it has been known, from a solitary fragment in a private collection, that certain ' Eustace ' coins were issued by Eustace Fitz John. This is a point of obvious interest to historical students, as bearing on the alleged issue, in Stephen's time, of coins from baronial mints. We observe that http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ on both the points connected with Eustace Fitz John, Mr. Brooke differs from Mr. Andrew, and is doubtless right in doing so. As ' the irregular issues ' (as they are here termed) of Stephen's reign are probably the subject on which the historian is most desirous of know- ledge, one may observe that, apart from those attributed to the king's brother, the princely bishop of Winchester, to the empress and her son, and, tentatively, to their ardent supporter, Brian Fitz Count, the only others at present attributed are those which bear the names of ' Robert' at University of Arizona on September 9, 2015 and ' William' (possibly, it is suggested, the two earls of Gloucester), of Eustace Fitz John, and of Robert de Stuteville. As to ' the regular coinage of the realm', the author definitely asserts that it 'retained its standard weight and fineness, and light or base coins are not more frequent in this than in the preceding reign'. He rejects, therefore, the statement of William of Malmesbury that Stephen grossly debased the coinage; nor, one gathers, would he accept the view of Mr. H. W. C. Davis that' rights of coinage . . . were granted without stint or limitation' by both claimants to the throne.1 His view seems to be that the privilege of coining was usurped by certain barons, who issued debased imitations of royal issues for their own profit, but that the ' named coinage' mentioned above makes it ' possible that the privilege of coining was actually bestowed by the King or the Empress on some of their followers'. This cautious conclusion seems a plausible theory, but is wholly, I believe, unsupported by any documentary evidence. Perhaps the most outstanding point now established numismatically is the existence of a mint in or near , from which were issued, under Stephen, sundry coins of such peculiar and distinctive types that Mr. Brooke is disposed to think them due to ' severing of control from the central authority at London' (pp. cvii, ex). Among these are the ' flag type' of the king's coins, in which he is seen holding, instead of a sceptre, an object which, I think, certainly suggests a horseman's lance rather than the ' standard' which gave name to the battle of 1138, and the famous 'double-figure' type. The coins issued by ' Eustace' and ' Robert' 1 England -under the Normans and Angevins, p. 166. 432 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July are also considered, from certain peculiarities, to belong to this group (pp. cvi-^cxvi). Their study has been complicated by the fact that the ' Eustace' coins, formerly assigned to Stephen's son, are now believed to have been issued by Eustace Fitz John (as explained above). Mr. Brooke rejects Ruding's view that the former struck them ' during his residence at York as governor', as he can find nothing in the Chronicles to support the view that ' Eustace was Governor of York at the time ', and finds no evidence' that such an office as ".Governor " of York existed in the twelfth century ' (p. cxii). Yet he himself writes :

The issues seem to me to represent the efforts of the mint at York in the hands Downloaded from of local administration thrown upon its own resources. ... It appears that the control of the mint or mints of was taken over . . . (presumably about* 1141, or perhaps slightly earlier) by the Constable of York and other magnates. . . . What evidence have we that such an office as ' Constable' of York existed at the time ? Although the names of Eustace Fitz John and http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ Robert de Stuteyille may now be definitely accepted, there is nothing to show why these barons should have struck the coins assigned to them. It is strange that Mr. Brooke does not mention the resemblance of the mounted knight on Robert's coin and of the lion on that of Eustace to similar figures on seals of the period. The coins of the empress, we learn, seem to be of low weight, but good metal, and the mints she is known to have used were at Bristol, Oxford, and Wareham. Her coins, we read, bore the inscriptions (in abbreviated form) ' Imperatrix, Matildis Comitissa' and ' Matildis Im- at University of Arizona on September 9, 2015 peratrix'. Of ' Matildis Comitissa'—a style, surely, which she is not otherwise known to have used—no explanation is vouchsafed. As with the two Eustaces, so with the two Henrys, the empress's son and her cousin, Henry of Scotland, there has been some confusion as to their coins. Mr. Brooke has much to say on the issues of both (pp. xcviii-cv, cxxi- cxxix), which present considerable difficulties, especially those of Henry of Anjou. However scholarly and competent may be his numismatic work, historical students may be somewhat disappointed at the indefi- nite conclusions at which Mr. Brooke has arrived. It looks as if their studies can expect little help from a science still abounding in unsolved problems. On the other hand, he might perhaps have consulted with advantage to himself the pages of this Review. The present writer alone has contributed to it papers on ' King Stephen and the Earl of Chester ', ' The Colchester Mint in Norman Times ', and Henry's alleged visit to England in 1147, all of them on points with which Mr. Brooke is concerned; and Mr. Davis's study on' of Stephen's Reign' is of importance. Yet he only cites' the letter of Brian Fitz Count to the Legate, published by Mr. Round in Eng. Hist. Rev., 1910,.pp. 297 ff.', which happens to have been contributed by Mr. Davis. Apart from the coins dealt with above, the only ' irregular issue' of the Norman period is represented by ' one coin of the reign of William II', attributed to ' Llewellyn [sic] ap Cadwgan' by Mr. Carlyon Britton, and here assigned to a mint at Rhyd y Gors. Historically speaking, this seems to present some difficulty. Llywelin, who was slain in 1099, was a younger son of a house whose territory was far removed from Rhyd 1917 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 433 y Gors, and Professor Lloyd tells us even of the of a century later, ' No Welsh prince of this period coined money'. It would be difficult to speak too highly of the collotype plates illustrat- ing this valuable corpus of the coins of our Norman kings. J. H. ROUND.

The Law and Custom of the Sea. Vol. I, 1205-1648 ; Vol. II, 1649-1767. By R. G. MARSDEN. (Navy Records Society, 1915, 1917.) THESE volumes are to be welcomed as furnishing materials, hitherto mainly inaccessible, for English naval and mercantile history from the Downloaded from thirteenth to the eighteenth centuries. In his excellent edition of Select Pleas of the Court of Admiralty and in articles for this Review, Mr. Marsden has so fully covered the ground as to leave little room for comment. The student of his selected documents cannot fail to agree with the editor

that ' the advance made in four centuries . . . towards the recognition of http://ehr.oxfordjournals.org/ a common law and common usages to regulate war and fighting at sea is small and its progress intermittent'. Indeed the interest of the subject may almost be said to be in an opposite direction—in the field which it opens to the sociologist for the study of ' survival', ' reversion', and even of 'retrogression'. The laws, of war are the rules of the game as expounded by the players ; but each team has its own code, and not only •does the worst code tend to displace the others, but even the rules of

that code are one by one suspended as the game lengthens and intensifies. at University of Arizona on September 9, 2015 If the Navy Records Society publishes a third volume, the practice of naval warfare will not be found less lawless at the end of the eighteenth century or at the beginning of the twentieth than it was. in the middle of the fourteenth century. Fortunately, in the intervals of peace, the principles of human intercourse have found a more lasting and progressive basis, and it is therefore perhaps a pity to appropriate the term ' law and custom of the sea' to those aspects of law and custom upon which the Navy Records Society naturally concentrates its attention—piracy and privateering, prize and reprisals, convoy and contraband. Within these limits, however, the economic historian will find ample data, and perhaps his chief concern will lie in the verification of the generally assumed connexion between the commercial interests of the nation as understood by its government and its naval policy in regard to neutrals, contraband, and prize. Some light is cast on this subject by the documents printed in the second volume relating to trade with the English colonies and with Spanish America. By the Act of 1650 (says Mr. Marsden) foreign ships caught trading to the English plantations in America or to the West Indies were declared good prize. The policy of this Act, carried farther by the Navigation Act of Charles II and by instructions to commanders in the West Indies to force a trade upon the Spaniards, gave an impetus to irregular fighting in American seas which culminated in the Spanish War of 1739. No doubt the fact that the correspondence between the government of Henry VIII and that of Charles V, in 1544-6, has been so long accessible in print prevented any account being given in these volumes of one of the most interesting discussions of maritime law on record, in which the conflicting commercial interests of the parties concerned had obviously VOL. XXXII.—NO. CXXVH. Ff