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book reviews543 father; although he clearly thinks de Lisle guilty, driven by financial problems caused by mamtaining a lavish lifestyle -when his revenues were declining after the Black Death. Others may feel that reasonable doubts remain to challenge the verdict. This is not a straightforward episcopal biography. Apart from finding the motivation for de Lisle's actions in his financial problems, and his exploitation of his household and administration to create a gang, his episcopal status seems secondary. Diocesan rule and estate administration receive only brief consideration . The legal history holds center stage, locating events in a broader debate on criminality in fourteenth-century England, and about Edward Ill's own responsibility for the breakdown in law and order. Here Aberth finds against the king. Aberth acknowledges the problems of using overtly one-sided legal records, yet seems happy to accept them largely at face-value. He efficiently proposes explanations for the actions of both sides in a case; but the end product seems inconclusive. De Lisle was misguided and deluded to believe papalist ideas on relations between pope and prince,church and state;but flight is not irrefutable proof of guilt. His years of exile raise their own questions: why was he not relegated to obscurity by translation? Other reviewers have praised this book. My reaction is more guarded, confidence being undermined by some curious slips in the early chapters. If de Lisle was, as postulated, from a neo-gentry family, would they really call a daughter "Ancilla"? "Fruit" repeatedly appears as the main crop of episcopal manors; this should be wheat. In their immediate contexts such mistakes are fairly innocuous , but they provoke a wariness which affects the reaction to the legal history. That lingering sense of unease (quite possibly unjustified) creates a feeling that although this book is thought-provoking in its general discussions, it must be used with caution. To cap it all,Aberth is ill-served by his index: the page references slip, and it soon becomes useless. R. N. Swanson University ofBirmingham Renaissance Cardinals and Their Worldly Problems. By D. S. Chambers. [Variorum Collected Studies Series, CS553-] (Brookfield,Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company. 1997. Pp. xii, 360. $98.95) The Variorum series presents us here with a collection of articles by David Chambers that date from 1966 to 1987, with an additional "postscript" from 1997. The problem with the volume is that most of the essays do not deal with Renaissance Cardinals at all, but rather with one man—Francesco Gonzaga (1444-1483), the first of a string of cardinals from the ruling family of Mantua. 544book reviews Of the ten articles here reprinted, numbers II through VI discuss respectively suitable housing for the fledgling cardinal; his patronage of the church of Sant'Andrea in Mantua; the cardinal's defense of non-residence; the martial activities of the young Francesco for the projected crusade of Pius II and in later legations; and a brief visit to the Medici court in Florence in 1471. Article VII traces the brief and unedifying life of the cardinal's illegitimate son; Article VIII discusses Giovanni Pietro Arrivabene, Francesco's secretary; and LX discusses Bartolomeo Marasca, Francesco's master of household. The only other cardinal who receives more than the most superficial mention (article X) is Ferdinando Gonzaga (1587-1626), cardinal for the five years from 1607 to 1612 and then Duke of Mantua to his death, hardly a typical curial career. The only essays, then, which deal with "cardinals" are number I and the Postscript . The first, "The Economic Predicament of Renaissance Cardinals," was an intriguing and provocative piece when it first appeared in 1966. Its argument remains useful—that the demands ofthe cardinalate required conspicuous consumption and magnificence that left the members of the Sacred College in perpetual and inevitable financial embarrassment. However, a great deal has been discovered about the fiscal arrangements of the cardinals during the past thirty years, and Professor Chambers' "Additions and Corrections" fail to incorporate much in the way of new evidence or analyses. Chambers also fails to correct a curious error in the original essay (I, p. 31 1) in which he calls Giovanni Guidiccioni the uncle of Cardinal Bartolomeo Guidiccioni, whereas...

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