The History of England from the Norman Conquest to the Death of John (1066-1216) Part 21

In Geoffrey de Mandeville he has written one book on the reign of Stephen that approaches the character of narrative history. In his Feudal England and Commune of London many articles on problems of this age have been collected in a form convenient for reference. Mr.

Round's knowledge of the history of persons and families is unsurpa.s.sed; he subjects the material he uses to a minuteness of a.n.a.lysis that is unusual; and he has settled, so far as the evidence admits of it, some important questions and a large number of minor problems, both of the history of events and of inst.i.tutions.

We owe to foreign scholars many studies of value on particular questions of Norman and Angevin history, like M. CHARLES BeMONT's on the trial of King John for the murder of Arthur, and a few long works of first importance. Dr. H. BoHMER's Kirche und Staat in England und der Normandie im XI und XII Jahrhundert is of great interest on the conflict of Anselm with Henry I and the consequences that flowed from it. O. RoESSLER's Kaiserin Mathilde is of particular value for the foreign policy of Henry I and for the reign of Stephen, though inclined to attach too much weight to what are really conjectures. M.A. LUCHAIRE's contribution to E.

Lavisse's Histoire de France is a very interesting piece of work, dealing fully with the French side of English foreign relations, and of especial value for the first three Angevin kings. The same subject is receiving also minute and careful treatment in Dr. ALEXANDER CARTELLIERI's Philip II Augustus, Koenig van Frankreich, the first volume of which goes to the death of Henry II, while M. PEt.i.t-DUTAILLIS's etude sur la Vie et la Regne de Louis VIII is useful for the last years of John.

It is impossible in a bibliography of this kind to speak of all the long list of monographs and special studies, English and foreign, which alone make possible the writing of a history of this age, and to which the writer must acknowledge his obligations in general terms.