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ray's central point, that the clan as an economic association, a unit of settle-ment, of military organization and of political division had no real existence, is carried, thus opening the way for a radical reassessment of social organiza-tion in the Germanic kingdoms of early medieval Europe.

This is a scrupulously-argued and well-documented book. Unfortunately it is also prolix and repetitious, probably betraying its origins in a thesis. But it is an important contribution to its field and its conclusions must be given full weight in future studies of early European society. University of Exeter Malcolm Todd

Iraq After the Muslim Conquest, by Michael G. Morony. Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1984. xi, 689 pp. $42.50. This book addresses one of the central questions of Islamic history: the effects of the seventh century Arab-Muslim invasions on conquered territories. While there has been considerable scholarly attention paid recently to the conquests themselves and the armies that achieved them, not much, apart from renewed debate on the Pirenne thesis, has been devoted to the changes - political, economic, social, and cultural - effected in the lands actually captured so quickly and dramatically by the Arab tribal armies. The reasons for this are ready to hand: the areas conquered are vast, from Spain to Central Asia, and the sources, difficult. The first problem Professor Morony has met with the obvious solution of limiting his research to Iraq; the seriousness with which he attacks the second emerges from the 117 pages he wrote on "Resources." There he passes in critical review the hundreds of works in a dozen languages on Sasanian Iran (including studies of inscriptions, seals, coins, and monu-ments) and Islamic Iraq (where the emphasis switches to literary sources), not just of Muslims, however, but of other religious communities as well. This appendix alone constitutes an independent monograph of considerable value for historians of ancient and medieval Mesopotamia and Iran and provides the starting point for future research.

But Morony's primary interest is not historiographical. Instead he uses his reading in a veritable maze of sources to study the issue of continuity and change under the impact of rapid conquest of territory and slow, never com-plete, religious conversion of its inhabitants. This issue is discussed in terms of administration, ethnic groups, and religious communities. Of these three parts the evidence is most concrete, and convincing, for the first. The survival of early Umayyad coins bearing the portrait of Sasanian emperors on the obverse, with a Magian fire temple on the reverse, affords tangible evidence of the continuation of Persian usages well after the conquest of Iraq. Although these coins were gradually Islamized by the substitution of suitable Arabic Islamic inscriptions and the suppression of figural representations, it was not until 702 that the minting of Arab-Sasanian coins stopped in Iraq. This evi-dence lends credence to the claims made by Arab historians of the Muslims' adoption of other Sasanian governmental practices and of Sasanian political theory.

Morony believes that these claims are exaggerated and that Arabic litera-ture anachronistically describes "the Sasanians in contemporary ninth and tenth century terms" (p. 27), but he himself is forced to rely heavily on historians and litterateurs of this period for his description of "the nature of the Sasanian system and the theories that supported it on the eve of the Islamic conquest" (p. 27).

Part II, entitled "People," focuses on specific ethnic groups known to have

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inhabited Iraq long before and after its conquest, and attempts to gauge their role both in preserving pre-Islamic practices and in adapting themselves to such innovations as were introduced by the conquerors. Thus Morony regards the survival of an Arameaen population as instrumental in continuing and transmitting farming and irrigation practices. Though the Persian population was displaced by the conquerors, many were resettled as prisoners and clients in new garrison cities. Moreover, many members of the Persian landed aris-tocracy preserved their status and their holdings by converting to Islam. Both groups, reinforced by new immigrants, helped to preserve Persian traditions of varied types under Muslim rule. The Arabs, including pre-Islamic natives and post-conquest immigrants, are treated in terms of their assimilation of Iraqi Sasanian culture and their contributions to it, mainly in the form of tribal organization. Smaller ethnic groups - Kurds, Syrians, Greeks, Turks, Indians, and Africans - helped constitute the ethnic diversity of Islamic Iraq, a characteristic of the region still prevalent today.

The longest part of the book concerns the effect of the conquests on the religious communities of Iraq; Magians, Jews, Christians, pagans, gnostics, and the conquerors themselves and their converts - Muslims. Since every first-generation Muslim had previously been a member of one or the other religious groups, it is not surprising that he tended to retain and perpetuate his earlier beliefs and practices. The same process was reinforced on a wider scale by the survival and institutionalization of religious communities within the new umma.

In the final chapter, "The Nature of Continuity," Morony summarizes his findings and sets forth their implications and applications. Here as elsewhere in the book the author is cautious and suggests promising topics for further research: comparisons with other areas where Islamization occurred, for example, and the study of other politico-religious societies in the light of the Iraqi model. Caution is certainly a commendable feature of a book so long and ambitious. Its principal merit is the coherent presentation of many data in a meaningful framework. Widely scattered materials are now conveniently available to students both of late Sasanian and early Islamic history. This is a substantial scholarly achievement. McGill University Donald P. Little

Papal Government and England during the Pontificate of Honorius III (1216-1227), by Jane E. Sayers. Cambridge, Cambridge Univeristy Press, 1984. v, 292 pp. $49.50. To write well, it has been said, a biographer must like his subject. Not only does Dr. Sayers like Honorius, one feels, but surely the liking would be reciprocated. Honorius, she concludes, was "logical, practical and sensible." Such terms apply to her own approach to this work.

The book consists of two unequal parts. The first is entitled "The Diplo-matic of the Letters," and the second "The Letters in their Legal and Histori-cal Context." Appendices contain the results of her investigations into the Chancery Scribes, and the texts of original letters with an English interest.

The book is dedicated to the memory of Walter Ullman, but the shades of T.F. Tout and Sir Maurice Powicke hang heavy over Parts One and Two respectively. But this is sober Cambridge writing, lacking the daring and humour of Tout or the rather mystical musing of Powicke. In fact, one would suspect a doctorate, if it had not been there already.

Part one, on the diplomatic, deals with the Chancery, the Letters and the