The Deeds of the Abbots of St Albans is the translation by David Preest of the Latin text of the chronicle of the abbots of St Albans, first edited in three volumes by Henry T. Riley for the Rolls Series in Gesta abbatum Monasterii Sancti Albani, between 1867 and 1869. Introduction and notes have been established by James G. Clark. A few years ago, a similar collaboration led to the publication of The Chronica majora of Thomas Walsingham (1376–1422), also based on a Latin edition in the Rolls Series. This time, the focus is on the domestic history of the monastery and an interesting point about the gesta abbatum tradition is made by James G. Clark in the rich introduction to the English translation. The choice to translate the life of the abbots takes place in the context of the renewed interest in the history of monastic communities and the various research projects on monastic history and cartularies, which are important sources for our understanding of religious life, local life and administration, but also national history.

Indeed, the abbots of St Albans were major landlords (the growth of the estate of St Albans can be retraced along the narrative and thanks to maps), peers of the realm and active members of the Benedictine order in England. Apart from the heads of the community whose portraits punctuate the narratives, the chronicle is also an important source for the spiritual and internal affairs of what was at once a major devotional place, a great historiographical and intellectual centre, a wealthy establishment and a crossroad for travellers and pilgrims. Hence, the history of the monastery often crossed paths with national events, from the loss of some lands into the hands of the Normans under Abbot Frederic in the second part of the eleventh century to the revolt of 1381. The papal Curia also finds its way into the narrative, punctuated by the journeys of abbots to the Curia to confirm abbatial elections and to obtain privileges for the monastery. This material, very much used in works such as the History of the county of Hertford (edited by W. Page, 1902–23) and Michelle Still's The abbot and the rule (2002), is now, thanks to David Preest's very pleasant translation, at the disposal of students who are not familiar with Latin.

As a companion to the text, a rich set of footnotes and endnotes have been established by James Clark: local names are elucidated with cross references to other chronicles and to unedited St Albans manuscripts, providing a considerable amount of details for local history and access to less known material from St Albans. Endnotes give the result of the collation of the various manuscripts of the Deeds of the abbots. A very useful introduction helps us to understand the rich and complicated textual history of this chronicle. Indeed, though this English translation has been established on the basis of Henry T. Riley's Latin text (notably from manuscripts BL, mss Cotton Nero D I and Cotton Claudius E IV), James Clark has taken into account other manuscripts and made a considerable effort to retrace the history of the texts. He links the making of the history of the convent with what is known about the history of the community itself, proposing hypotheses to explain some major changes in the writings of events in the community, such as the Black Death which struck the monks in the mid-fourteenth century, or even the opposition between the household of the abbots and other members of the community at the end of this same century. With this perspective, he separates the works which form part of the ‘conventual narrative’ (which is the part of the story translated here) and other narratives. In this dense introduction – which could have been made even clearer with a table of manuscripts and abbreviations – Clark explains the absence of some parts of the narrative of the history of the monastery in this edition, especially the records of the abbots who succeeded to Thomas de la Mare, those being ‘scarcely more than an archive of their principal acts bound together between the oak boards of a book’ (p. 21). The history of the monastery after abbot Thomas de la Mare therefore remains untranslated and has to be looked for in the Rolls Series (for example Gesta abbatum, iii. 424–535 about abbots John Moot and William Heyworth or Registrum abbatiae Johannis Whethamstede, i, ii, for the registers of later abbots). Appendices are also restricted to a thirteenth-century ‘digest of the Deeds’, from BL, ms Cotton Vitellius A XX. To limit the edition and translation to works which are closely linked to the tradition of the Deeds is a coherent choice, also explained by the lack of place. In the same way, the choice to gather the whole narrative in one volume explains why summaries of the documents copied in the chronicles are provided instead of the whole acts.

This book is important for both historians and students in the way that it renews interest in this very rich source, and provides up-to-date information about the monastery, local history and textual history. However, the Latin edition by Henry T. Riley remains the reference point when it comes to the Latin text, the documents inserted in the chronicles and the ‘non-conventual’ narratives of abbacies.