Kings, Bishops, Nobles and Burghers in Medieval Hungary by Erik Fügedi; János BakReview by: Martyn RadyThe Slavonic and East European Review, Vol. 65, No. 3 (Jul., 1987), pp. 465-466Published by: the Modern Humanities Research Association and University College London, School ofSlavonic and East European StudiesStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4209591 .

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REVIEWS 465

devoted to the lists of exchange rates. These are arranged by area (beginning, naturally enough, with Italy) and embody a great deal of information drawn from the local work of a large number of other historians, as Dr Spufford makes clear in his introduction. The exchange rates are presented for the most part in terms of the Florentine florin - as the author says, 'For historians wishing to make comparisons between prices, wages, rents or taxes in two or more different currencies the natural procedure is therefore to follow the medieval example and convert them into florentine florins' (p. liv). Readers of this journal, however, may wish to note that the Genoese genovino and the Venetian ducat were more likely to be used in trade outside Western Europe. They will also be disappointed that this book does not do more for the areas they study: 'apart from Bohemia, there is not enough surviving material for the scandinavian or slavonic parts of Europe to give their currencies more than the briefest entries' (p. lv). Nevertheless, there are sections for Bohemia, Luibeck, the Teutonic Knights, Poland, Hungary, Austria, Riga, Byzantium, the Black Sea and the Balkans, Chios and Rhodes, and one notes the presence in the bibliography of studies in Czech, Hungarian and Polish (but not Russian). Perhaps the appearance of this book will encourage scholars in and of Eastern Europe to look again at their sources.

My only criticisms are that the resolute avoidance of capitals in the introduction (but not in the tables) leads to infelicities such as 'polish money', and that the reference on p. lvii to 'The graph on p. oo' is in fact to a fold-out pasted in at the end of the book.

A letter from Dr Spufford enclosed with the book states that a fuller machine-readable version has been contributed to the Medieval and Early Modern Data Bank at Rutgers University where it will be supplemented by further information and ultimately be available through the RLIN system. Warburg Institute W. F. RYAN

University of London

Filgedi, Erik. Kings, Bishops, Nobles and Burghers in Medieval Hungary. Edited and with a preface byJanos Bak. Variorum Reprints, London, I986. 346 pp. Bibliography. Index. ?32.00.

ERIK FUGEDI is one of the most exciting and original of the present generation of Hungarian historians. On the occasion of his seventieth birthday, a collection of his essays has been brought together in a new Variorum edition. This volume provides not only a fitting tribute to a remarkable scholar, but also a unique introduction to the social history of the Hungarian middle ages.

The collection's contents are well summarized by its title. There are two essays on the episcopal organization of medieval Hungary, three on the aristocracy and nobility, five on the towns, and one essay apiece on the coronation service, settlement history, and the role of the intellectual in medieval society. However, it is not so much the range of the subject-matter which makes this collection so striking, as the glimpse it reveals of the different methodologies employed by Professor Fuigedi in the course of his career.

As must be the case with one who received his early training under the guidance of Professors Malyusz, Hajnal, and Szentpetery, Erik Fiigedi's work

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466 THE SLAVONIC REVIEW

has always been characterized by its avoidance of partisan generalization and by its solid foundation in archival research. In the making of Erik Fiigedi as a historian, though, two additional influences may be perceived. The first of these had its unlikely origin in a period of professional exile during the I950S when Erik Fiigedi learned to master statistical and accounting techniques. The result of his labours is demonstrated here in two essays: one a statistical survey of the careers of Hungarian bishops in the fifteenth century; the other a study of the economy of the archbishopric of Esztergom. The second important influence upon Erik Fuigedi arose from a three-month visit to Paris, undertaken in I969, during which he became acquainted with the methods and ideas of the Annales school. Henceforward, Erik Fiugedi became increas- ingly absorbed in developing a cross-disciplinary approach to the study of the Hungarian middle ages. His interest in the direction taken by French historians is shown here in essays on kinship and oral culture and in his seminal study on the towns and mendicant orders in Hungary - an article which first appeared in Annales: Economies, Sociites, Civilisations, 1970.

This is indeed a most noteworthy collection of essays from the pen of an outstanding historian. Once again, our thanks are due to ProfessorJanos Bak, the editor of the present volume, who has already done much to draw the attention of scholars in the west to Erik Fuigedi's work. London MARTYN RADY

Hartley, Janet M. (ed.). The Study of Russian Historyfrom British Archival Sources. Mansell Publishing Limited, London and New York, I986. ix + I84 PP. Notes. ?26.oo.

THE study of Russian history and Anglo-Russian relations has been an academic growth industry in recent years, and its development has brought to light quantities of diverse and scattered source material in Britain. A systematic survey of unpublished British sources for Russian history is therefore timely, and DrJanet Hartley's Guide to Documents and Manuscripts in the United Kingdom Relating to Russia and the Soviet Union has just appeared. The volume under review is designed as a companion to that Guide: it comprises papers of a conference held to discuss and demonstrate the richness of the material available. The first two chapters provide accounts of the Guide project and of the Pennington Union Catalogue of Cyrillic Manuscript Codices in the British Isles, completed by Dr Ralph Cleminson and now at proof stage, which will complement the Guide as an exhaustive survey of earlier materials. Next Richard Davies describes the Leeds Russian Archive, established at Leeds University in I982, which has already accumulated impressive holdings on very slender means. The following seven contributions survey particular subject areas or bodies of documentation. Geraldine Phipps expands her previous coverage of Britons in seventeenth-century Russia, emphasizing in the process that British records in fact allow research well beyond the narrow confines of Anglo-Russian relations. Paul Dukes looks at the personalia of emigrants to Muscovy from north-east Scotland. Jeremy Black places the documentation of Anglo-Russian diplomatic contacts I 714-50 in its necessary

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