On the Laws and Governance of England (review)

160 Reviews changes that move the plot towards the right conclusion. Hinton notes that the animal-human ambivalences in the werewolf's use of 'natural' animal behaviour to perform his 'human' role as tricky servant raise questions that have a comic dimension—'who is teaching whom?', 'which is the greater intelligence, human or animal?' (p. 141). H e makes a plausible case for the distinctiveness of William ofPalerne's werewolf, via helpful comparisons with the werewolf in Gerald of Tilbury's Otia Imperialia, and with references to the French source from which William is adapted, Guillaume de Palerne. 'Gargoyles: Animal Imagery and Artistic Individuality in Medieval Art' is Janetta Rebold Benton's unusal contribution to the analysis of the world in between (pp. 147-65). The essay considers in detail, and with a well-chosen body of evidence from Spain, France and England, which images were used for gargoyles, and which were not?; what did gargoyles mean to people of the late Middle Ages?, and for w h o m were they intended? Nona C. Flores explores the use of the Edenic dracontopede in her study '"Effigies Amicitiae...Veritas Inimicitiae": Antifeminism in the Iconography of the Woman-Headed Serpent in Medieval and Renaissance Art and Literature' (pp. 167-95). Noting the pervasive influence of Peter Comestor's bi-forrn representation of the serpent in his Historia Scholastica (12th c), Flores calls upon a useful array of sources to chart the similarities and differences between literary interpretations of the dracontopede, the scorpion, and the siren, finding that 'all share...an innate ability for fraud merely because of their dual form' (p. 174), but that in the case of the first, the deceitfulness is associated in particular with a woman's sin, and made more heinous because directed against a man. She also looks at iconographic representations of Eve with the dracontopede, observing with care both the visual parallels and their development over several centuries of artistic interpretations. Janet Hadley Williams Department of English Australian National University Fortescue, Sir John, On the Laws and Governance of England (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought), ed. Shelley Lockwood, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1997; paper; pp. liv, 156; R.R.P. AUS$29.95. Shelley Lockwood's edition of John Fortescue's work is a timely addition to fifteenth-century studies. Such a volume has been needed for years: S. B. Chrimes' 1942 edition of In Praise of the Laws of England has held up well but Charles Plummer's 1885 edition of The Governance of England has looked decidedly dated for some time. Lockwood's version of Fortescue's writings is, in many ways, edited with considerably more sophistication than any of the previous volumes. Lockwood Reviews 161 has included copies of Fortescue's works from the late 1460s and early 1470s, In Praise ofthe Laws ofEngland and The Governance ofEngland. She has also added some of Fortescue's minor works in English such as his 1470 address to the Earl of Warwick, although she has not included his earlier pro-Lancastrian works. These texts have been thoroughly footnoted and referenced, marking a significant improvement on previous editions. Lockwood has also provided a relatively large index, again, an important addition. Despite these virtues, On the Laws and Governance ofEngland is marred by some serious flaws. The volume appears in the Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought, a series which aims to 'make available to students all the most important texts in the history of western political thought'. The books already printed in the series include works written in periods ranging from the classical world to the eighteenth century and they are unified only by their influence on contemporary political thought. As a result, this edition is oriented towards a political rather than a historical reading. One can't help but feel that Fortescue is being reviewed as a political correspondent to the twentieth century rather than as a writer addressing afifteenth-centuryaudience. This tendency to ignore the historical aspects of Fortescue's work is present in both the introduction and the editing of the texts. The introduction explores Fortescue's political theories in some detail, but does not offer much...