The present work is the second of a planned collection of three volumes making available to philologists and historians of French and Occitan an edition of the collection of consular accounts for Montferrand, currently deposited in the Archives départementales of Puy-de Dôme. In all, there are some 18 books of documents which provide a detailed record of administrative dealings in medieval Montferrand. Lodge (Reference Lodge1985) provides an edition of the first book, covering 1259–72, and a final double volume is planned for the remaining books that span 1346–90, the material relating to the years between 1319 and 1346 being regrettably no longer extant. The existing accounts, which only managed to survive the depredations of the Revolutionary period by having been stored away in the 1730s in the church bell tower of Montferrand, were rediscovered in 1842 by an inspector of ancient monuments. The find was a very fortunate one, in that we now have at our disposal not only a valuable historical document that sheds light on governance in medieval Montferrand but also, and more importantly for the historical linguist, a rare example of a substantial medieval Occitan text of a non-literary character. It consists of a detailed record of tax rolls and of the accounts (expenses and receipts) of the eight annually elected consuls of the town, though just the accounts are covered in the present work. The decision to use bas auvergnat in the writing of the documents rather than Latin was doubtless taken because they related to internal administrative affairs proper to Montferrand. Latin would undoubtedly have been de rigueur for any administrative communication intended for the outside at this period. Strikingly, as the editor notes, the accounts remain relatively free of northern French influence until well into the fourteenth century. It is only in 1360 that circumstances change with the arrival of a new ruler in Montferrand; thereafter, northern French becomes increasingly evident in the accounts. The documents of the present volume therefore offer some potentially invaluable insights into the linguistic situation of the Auvergne in the period when native Occitan speech habits were still being relatively faithfully recorded.

Preceding the text of the accounts is an introductory overview (iii–xli) presenting helpful background information on the history of Montferrand and the rationale behind the composition of this medieval body of documents together with some brief observations on significant phonetic, morphological and lexical data that the documents contain, e.g. words like doires ‘pots’ not otherwise found in medieval Occitan or chausada ‘trial’ which appears to be unattested elsewhere in medieval or modern Occitan. Completing the introduction is a brief note on editorial conventions adopted, followed by a substantial bibliography.

The edition of the text of the accounts [1–122] is very tidily and clearly presented with each account entry ascribed a unique reference number (e.g. ‘3.172’ = book 3, item 172) enabling systematic cross-referencing to be made between the text and the extensive and informative body of notes [123–164] and the index of proper names [165–182] and the glossary [183–212]. Interestingly, the different sets of annual accounts vary considerably in their length and detail. Thus, for the consulship year 1284–85 there are 144 and for 1286–87 as many as 195, but for 1287–88 there were only 82. Whether such variation reflects different degrees of zeal in recording transactions, fluctuations in the number of actual transactions occurring year on year or just vagaries in the transmission of the manuscript is far from clear.

The text of the volume is attractively presented and shows only a very small number of typographical errors, such as connaissant for connaissent (p. xxvii, l. 4). The editor is to be thanked for making this very useful contribution to Occitan and Romance studies, and we look forward to seeing in due course the third and final volume which will complete the edition of an important philological resource.