Norman Institutions. By C. H. Haskins. (H. Milford. 12s. nct.)—Professor
Haskins of Harvard has at last collected, in a revised form, his patient studies of the Constitutional history of Normandy, from the reign of William the Conqueror to that of John. The influence of the Norman Conquest upon England cannot be understood unless we know how the Norman Dukes ruled in their own Duchy before and after 1066, and Professor Haskins's scholarly treatise, based on many years of research, supplies the information. He pictures the Normans asextremely able organizers, receptive of new ideas, in a slovenly and conservative age, and helps us to realize that Harold's loosely knit England had as little chance of resisting Norman penetration as Russia in dissolution had when Germany dropped her Pacificist cloak and appeared in her true colours. Professor Haskins opens many new lines of in- vestigation in this masterly book. We may call attention to his theory that the systematic distribution by William of the burden of knight-service in England was modelled on an earlier Norman plan with a unit of ten knights, and to his highly interesting treatment of the early Norman jury, from which there is no doubt the English jury took its rise.
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