movement in Normandy, and is particularly valuable and detailed in his
account of the period after the battle of Senlac. Among secondary
authorities for the Norman Conquest, Simeon of Durham is useful for
northern matters, and William of Malmesbury worthy of note for his
remarkable combination of Norman and English feeling. Domesday Book is of
course invaluable for the Norman settlement. The chief documents for the
early history of Anjou have been collected in the "Chroniques d'Anjou"
published by the Historical Society of France. Those which are authentic
are little more than a few scant annals of religious houses; but light is
thrown on them by the contemporary French chronicles. The "Gesta
Consulum" is nothing but a compilation of the twelfth century, in which a
mass of Angevin romance as to the early story of the Counts is dressed
into historical shape by copious quotations from these French historians.

It is possible that fresh light may be thrown on our earlier history when
historical criticism has done more than has yet been done for the
materials given us by Ireland and Wales. For Welsh history the "Brut y
Tywysogion" and the "Annales Cambriæ" are now accessible in the series
published by the Master of the Rolls; the "Chronicle of Caradoc of
Lancarvan" is translated by Powel; the Mabinogion, or Romantic Tales,
have been published by Lady Charlotte Guest; and the Welsh Laws collected
by the Record Commission. The importance of these, as embodying a
customary code of very early date, will probably be better appreciated
when we possess the whole of the Brehon Laws, the customary laws of
Ireland, which are now being issued by the Irish Laws Commission, and to
which attention has justly been drawn by Sir Henry Maine ("Early History
of Institutions") as preserving Aryan usages of the remotest antiquity.

The enormous mass of materials which exists for the early history of
Ireland, various as they are in critical value, may be seen in Mr.