This is an example of the unfortunate Namenjagd that legal historians have been chasing for the past forty years as they have attempted to connect anonymous works and manuscripts with known jurists. Some other essays in the volume make similar attempts. Gisela Drossbach suggests that Johannes Teutonicus might have brought a primitive decretal collection in Halle, Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek, MS Ye 27 80 from Bologna to Halberstadt. Since the script is not Italian, and the collection is not a systematic collection of decretals (i.e., is not organized into books and divided into titles) that seems unlikely. Peter Landau thinks, however, that a copy of Compilatio prima in Halle ULB MS Ye 27 52 was carried North by Johannes Teutonicus. The time period fits, but that is all. Martin Bertram discusses three examples of Pope Gregory IX’s Decretales in Halle ULB MSS Ye 27 31, 32, and 47. He notes that all three manuscripts contain Gregory’s letter addressed to the University of Paris, which would seem to confirm other conjectures that Halberstadt lies more in the French orbit than in the Italian. He rightly does not connect them to Johannes. Tatsushi Genka examines Halle ULB Ye 2 o 52 which contains a commentary on Gratian from the second half of the twelfth century. There have been many opinions about origins of the text, but Genka has admirably just laid out some of the evidence and suggests it came from French sources. The dating and localizing of manuscripts set many traps for the unwary. Although script is important, I have argued that glosses are also key to dating legal manuscripts. Illumination and initials are dangerous because they are often later additions. John Wei analyzes two Gra- tian texts, Halle ULB MSS Ye 2 o 36 and 51. He finds that these manuscripts were part of a French tradition of manuscripts. However, his claim cannot be verified. In spite of the many photos of manuscripts, the editors provided no illustrations for these two very important man- uscripts. This is especially disappointing since previous scholars have located them in Italy. If one may judge from Wei’s other descriptions of manuscripts I know, e.g., Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, MS Clm 10244 and 27337 (370–71), he can be wrong about localization of scripts and the origins of glosses. He also asserts that a Gratian in Wolfenbüttel, Herzog Au- gust Bibliothek, Guelf MS 33 is French. There is, remarkably, no illustration of it in the book. Only one essay deals with a Wolfenbüttel manuscript exclusively. Abigail Firey makes the claim that “almost any ... manuscript transmitting canon law in the Carolingian period pro- vides evidence that there was a rich juridical culture ... before Gratian” (213). Wolfenbüttel, Herzog August Bibliothek, Guelf MS 1062, she says, “demonstrates the point nicely.” None- theless, a very small, insignificant collection of ecclesiastical and a few Roman law texts wrapped around a major canonical collection, the Dacheriana, and not endowed with glosses, provides no evidence of a “rich juridical culture” (213). Texts found in legal collections can reveal a compilers’ sources but not their learning. In spite of my quibbles Carmassi and Drossbach have produced a fine volume. Kenneth Pennington, Catholic University of America Neil Christie and Hajnalka Herold, eds., Fortified Settlements in Early Medieval Eu- rope: Defended Communities of the 8th–10th Centuries. Oxford and Philadelphia: Ox- bow Books, 2016. Pp. xxviii, 332; many color figures, 4 tables, and many maps. £50. ISBN: 978-1-78570-235-8. Table of contents available online at https://www.oxbowbooks.com/oxbow/fortified-set tlements-in-early-medieval-europe.html doi:10.1086/699402 This book originated in two conferences held in 2013—a session for the International Me- dieval Congress in Leeds and a symposium in Oxford—both dedicated to fortified settle- ments in early medieval Europe. The main question is whether fortifications play an exclu- sively military role. In their introduction, the editors describe the “geographies of power” Reviews 1175 Speculum 93/4 (October 2018) This content downloaded from 128.227.24.141 on Fri, 15 Mar 2024 10:58:07 +00:00 All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms