New

books

Publishers’ announcements

The purpose of this section of the Journal of medieval history is to include a brief notice of new books in medieval history, and to list new editions and reprints, appearing during the months immediately preceding the date of publication of each issue. The Journal will not carry reviews; it asks publishers to send, instead of copies of new books, brief notices about them of not more than 150 words in length. To meet the cost of this exercise, the Journal is obliged to charge a fee of $10 (E5) for a brief announcement (max. 150 words) and $5 (L2.50) fcr listing a reprint or new edition. Texts of such announcements and details of reprints, together with remittance, should be sent to the Publishers, from whom further details of the scheme may be had.

Frank Barlow. The English church, IOOO-1066. A history of the later Anglo-Saxon church. Second edition. 336 pages, maps and

diagrams. L4.95. Publication date :

April 1979. A Longman Paperback. 30

Frank Barlow’s standard account of the later Anglo-Saxon church, unavailable for some years, now appears in paperback for the first time. It deals in detail with the

period from Cnut to Edward the Confessor, following the tenth-century reformation and

preceding the Norman and ‘Gregorian’ reforms of the English church.

The later Anglo-Saxon church was mal- igned by Norman and monastic writers, and then neglected by historians. Btit its correct interpretation is vital for assessing both the Old English ecclesiastical ac’:lieve-

ment itself and also the Norman contribution to the insular church. Moreover, as Professor Barlow shows, the strength and greatness of the late Anglo-Saxon kingdom were kiirgely

due to the fruitful co-operation bcl:.:.veen royal and ecclesiastical government; and by studying the organization and working of the church within the kingdom we are able to see the English state itself, and English

society, in a fresh perspective. The major feature of the Second Edition

is the addition, as an Appendix, of a com-

plete new chapter on the monasteries. At the time of the First Edition Professor Barlow felt that the concentration of earlier eccles-

iastical historians on monasticism had dis- torted our overall view of the period, and he preferred to lay the emphasis of his own study

elsewhere. His new chapter - which brings together much that has been said about monasticism in ot;ler parts of the book, and also treats of new matters such as internal

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monastic organization and the life of the monks - now redresses the balance.

In its new form, The English Church 100~- 1066 is both comprehensive and authorita- tive in its treatment. Its reappearance will be

widely welcomed by all those with an interest in the history of early medieval England.

Frank Barlow. jY;le English church, 1066-l d54. A history of the AngloJforman church. About

400 pp., 4 line illustrations. El5.00. Pub- lication date: 30 April 1979. Longman.

This is the sequel to Professor Barlow’s

The English church 10004066. It is a study of the Anglo-Norma;1 church from Lanfranc to

Becker. His aim has been to write the history of the English church in the Norman period in the light of developments in the Western Church as a whofe. He shows how, out of the

&Norman ‘conqucs t’ of the Anglo-Saxon

church, evolved a YX~ English church, which retained some of :he virtues and vices of both Df its two main traditions but also developed a distinctive character sf its own. It was a period of conflict and change, of important

and interesting churchmen, of spectacular advances in most religious, intellectual, and cultural fields. Moreover, it is the age in which .medieval man comes out of the shad- ows: with men like Anselm, Abelard, and John of Salisbury we have reached human

beings whom we can observe from many angles, and, from our observations, feel

able to understand a little. The book is a political and constitutional

study which also comprehends some of the main cultural areas of the church. It starts with an analysis of the seructure of the

church, which leads to an outline history, in

which the important events, the characters

of the actors, and the main developments are &scribed. Then a series of thematic

chapters deal in detail with government and justic e ; monasteries ; schools, education, and

scholars; and finally the interrelationship of

church and state.

Norman Kretzman (ed.). Paul of Venice, Logica magna. Part I, Fascicule 1. 344 pages. About E20. Fublished for the British

Academy by the Oxford University Press, September 1979.

Paul of Venice ( 1369-l 429) was one of the most important logicians of the later middle ages and the Logica magna was his master- piece. Although the full details of his biogra-

phy have yet to be established, it is clear that Paul had an active career in the political,

religious and academ$ spheres. He served as an ambassador of Ve’riice to foreign rulers, held various positioc:: of leadership within

his order and achieve& the status of Doctor of Arts and Theology at<id lector in philosophy at the University of Padua. The Logica magna was probably ivritten on his return to Italy after spending :.hree years in Oxford,

about the year 1393,. A work of enormous length, it will be published by the British

Academy in a number of parts. The present fascicule, the second to appear, contains the first of the 38 treatises, the treatise on terms.

In keeping with the self-contained, encyclo- paedia character of the Logica magna, this

first treatise introduces and explains many of the concepts essential to an understanding

of the subsequent treatises and, indeed, to medieval semantic theory and linguistic

analysis generally.

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Logica magn &, part II, Fascicule 6, edited by

Francesco Del Punta and translated by Marilyn M. Adams, was published in Feb-

ruary 1978 at E15.00 and is available from Oxford University Press.

David M. Smith (ed.). English episcopal acta, 1. Lincoln, 1067--1185. 312 pages. 4 plates.

435.00. Published for the British Academy

by Oxford University Press, October 1979.

Some fifty years ago, Sir Frank Stenton urged that it was only through a systematic collection and publication of episcopal acta

that “the way towards a clearer knowledge of the twelfth-century church in England, the beginnings of English ecclesiastical law [and] the development of the parochial system”

could be found. This present volume is the first in the British Academy’s new series of English episcopal acta, the purpose of which is

to make readily available editions of English

episcopal charters from 1066 to the thir-

teenth century, arranged by diocese. It is also the first of two volumes to be devoted to the charters of bishops of Lincoln frorn the

Norman Conquest to 1235 and contains over 300 acta and references to lost acta covering the episcopates of the first six

bishops up to 1185, a period of great sig- nificance in the history of diocesan adminis- tration. Subsequent volumes in this series

will include the dioceses of Canterbury, Rochester, Exeter, Durham, Ely and York.

P. II. Sawyer (ed.). Charters of Burton Abbey. Anglo-Saxon charte!*s, 2. 148 pages. 4 plates. El 5.00. Publishett for the British Academy

by Oxford IJnivcrsity Press, 22 February 1979.

This volume is the second part of the new

Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Charters being sponsored join tl;! by the British Academy and the Royal I-Iistorical Society. The Corpus is intended to include all pre-Con-

quest title deeds known to have survived, that is, all d~umen~s relating to grants of

land and liberties, whoever their grantor or grantee, whatever their diplomatic form (wills and mehoranda as well as diplomas and writs, leases as M ell as grants in per- petuity), whether written in Latin or the vernacular. Unattached boundaries will also be included. Each fascicule of the Corp- us will represent one or more archive groups

and each will be the responsibility of an individual scholar, working within the over-

all scheme. The present volume contains the thirty-eight documents from the archives of the abbey of Burton-upon-Trent. These charters, which date from the tenth and

eleventh centuries, include the will of Wulfric and an importan:-, group of single sheets discovered earlier this century. There are facsimiles of portions of these five documents and fifteen chrismons (chi-ro-s;.:mbols) ;tre reproduced from the Burton Car tulary in the National Library of Wale:,, MS. Peniarth

390.

Richard Vaughan. 11 Matthew Paris. 304~~. 2 1 plates, 11 line figures. I-Iard cover:

about 412.50; paperback: about L4.95. Cam bridge Universi ty Press, July 1979.

This book on the life and works of Matthew

Paris is the only full-scale study of one of the most important of the medieval chroniclers of British and European history. First published in 1958, it is re-issued in recogni- tion ,,f its continuing importance as an essenrial reference for all students of medi-

355

eval and ecclesiastical history. A supple- mentary bibliography has been added to take account of recent scholarship. It is Volume 6 of the Second Series of Cam- bridge Stuc!ies in Medieval Life and Thought.

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