First published in History, January 2007

Nobody involved in any aspect of medieval research can afford to do without this publication. The sixteen-volume set — replicated at a remarkably affordable price in both a single CD-ROM and an online subscription version — is now our principal source for the activities within parliament in its formative centuries, both in respect of the formal documents drawn up and the informal narratives of events conducted in and around the sittings. Replacing the folio volumes of 1783, which are incomplete, potentially misleading and too rare to be borrowed from a library, it is the most important edition of a medieval primary source to appear since the calendars of the patent and close rolls in the first half of the last century.

The manuscripts have been newly transcribed and translated, with an introduction for each parliament supplied by one of a team of leading scholars. Those for the particular volumes looked at by this reviewer were written by Professor Given-Wilson (the general editor of the series). The translations are highly efficient, in that they are easy to read as well as accurate. As they are presented in double-column format, cross-referencing between the original text and the translation is straightforward. The CD-ROM contains a general introduction detailing the development of the parliamentary rolls as a form and giving information on other relevant records for the history of parliament. With regard to the separate introductions to the individual assemblies, these constitute the best concise overview of the political development of the reigns of Richard II and Henry IV. The editor's judgement in supplying sufficient information to illuminate the full proceedings of each parliament without clouding that illumination with too many footnotes and historiographical debate is to be commended. The analyses of the political initiatives and counterinitiatives are succinct and subtly persuasive, employing a good deal of common sense. Supporting material from chronicle accounts has been carefully chosen to complete the picture of parliamentary jostling. In particular, Professor Given- Wilson's unrivalled knowledge of the primary sources for the period means that several essential but difficult-to-obtain narratives are supplied in translation as appendices.

The low price and search facilities of the CD-ROM version make it by far the most suitable for the individual researcher, and unlike older styles of primary source publication, easier to use than the printed volumes. Indeed, this reviewer copied the CD onto a laptop at the time of publication and has been carrying it around as a constantly available reference tool ever since. Opening in a web browser, an introductory screen allows immediate access to any one of the reigns, the title page, introduction and lists of images. (One hundred pictures have been included to illustrate the appearance of the rolls and certain key aspects of their provenance and development.) Within each parliament frame, a bottom-of-screen bar allows easy changing between introduction and roll, and within each text, hypertext links allow correlation of the translation and transcribed original. The reader can also refer back to, or search on, the original page numbers of the eighteenth-century volumes. Alternatively, the membranes of the original manuscripts can be used for citation and navigation. Not all of the petitions from the eighteenth-century volumes have been incorporated in full in this production, as they do not all form part of an extant parliament roll, and so searching on some references from the eighteenth-century tomes will yield no results; but even the unedited petitions have been calendared, so for almost all users this will not detract significantly. Similarly, although there are still a few glitches in the CD-ROM version — for example in jumping between the reigns when using the multi-reign search facility — these are not sufficiently awkward to inhibit researchers finding what they require.

It would be churlish to give too much space to a criticism of this work, but it has to be said that it has a singular drawback. There are more elisions of words than in any other scholarly volume this reviewer has ever read. Page 4 of volume viii, for example, has four ('ofattendance', 'fullcomplement', 'MercilessParliament', and 'thesession') in just twelve lines. The start of the next page has another four, and the pattern of mistakes continues throughout. This can only have been owing to a corrupt or carelessly wielded piece of software, and cannot be blamed on the editors. Nevertheless, it is very sad that so many slight errors have been allowed to mar what is a great achievement not only in respect of the material presented but also with regard to the user-friendliness and wide-ranging facilities of a modern primary source on CD-ROM.

Ian Mortimer, University of Exeter

Comment from SDE: Many errors such as those noted in the last paragraph were noticed in the process of preparation of the print edition, and repaired for that publication. We are (February 2008) in discussion with the editors and co-publishers on implementing these and other corrections in the online version.