Robert Cul-those, Duke of Normandy. By C. W. David. (Harvard
University Press ; H. Milford. 12s. 6d. net.)—The author, who was a pupil of Professor Haskins, has written an interesting life of the luckless Robert, son of William I., who was ousted from his duchy by his abler brothers William Rufus and Henry I., and spent the last twenty-eight years of his life in English prisons. Robert's part in the First Crusade was the most attractive episode of his career ; he seems to have acted as a peacemaker among the quarrelsome Crusaders and evidently had some personal charm, though he was a bad ruler and a very unwise politician. Mr. David's biography is solidly based on the Norman charters for the study of which Professor Haskins has done so much, as well as on the chronicles, but though it is the result of much patient research it is attractively written and pleasant to read. Mr. David appends a chapter on the legends, current in the Middle Ages, of Robert's superhuman prowess against the infidel in the Holy Land.
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