Documents Illustrative of the Social and Economic History of the
Danelaw. Edited by F. M. Stenton. (H. Milford for the British Academy. 31s. 6d. net.)—The British Academy, with a modest State grant, is printing some of the more important records of English social and economic.history, which the Rolls Series might have included if it had been continued. The fifth volume of this important series contains nearly six hundred twelfth-century charters relating to the five counties of Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Leicester, and Rutland, which lormed the Danelaw, with a full index and a long and instructive introduction by Professor Stanton, who emphasizes the distinctive features of this Anglo-Danish community. The editor is convinced that there was a Jarge body of peasant proprietors in this region in the twelfth century ; the numerous Scandinavian names show that the descendants of the ninth-century Danish settlers were still more or less distinct.from the English population. The charters contain traces of primitive customs which feudalism had abolished in Southern England. " The contrast between north and south, fundamental as it is throughout English history, is nowhere revealed more clearly " than in such documents as these. Profes- sor Stenton's book supplies a solid basis for further research.
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