The historical writings of Bernard Itier (1163–1225), head librarian of the Benedictine abbey of Saint-Martial at Limoges, have a complex textual history, and so this Oxford Medieval Texts edition of all his works is very welcome. Compiler of his abbey's chronicle, Itier also added extensive notes to numerous other works: some of these are autograph – published here from over thirty manuscripts – but others are known only from later copies, notably his additions to the work of a slightly earlier Limousin chronicler, Geoffrey de Vigeois. Andrew W. Lewis's new edition includes all these texts as well as excerpts that Itier copied from older works, including Einhard's Life of Charlemagne and the eleventh-century Limousin chronicler Adhemar of Chabannes. The editor describes Itier's chronicle as a ‘succession of discrete notes and jottings’ (p. xxix), which Lewis painstakingly sorts into chronological order. He then publishes the miscellaneous notes found in other manuscripts, also chronologically. Historians of the Angevin Empire have given most attention to Bernard Itier because of one of these notes which describes Richard the Lionheart's death at nearby Châlus-Chabrol in 1199. This account's importance was highlighted by John Gillingham in 1979 and earns a separate appendix in Lewis's edition (other appendices consider the monks of Saint-Martial, the Itier family and the death of Adhemar v, viscount of Limoges): as Gillingham showed, it provides good evidence that Richard launched his last campaign out of urgent political necessity rather than from a frivolous desire to seize an unearthed ancient treasure. Itier recorded numerous other major events, including holy wars in Spain, Languedoc, Palestine, Byzantium and Egypt, but said surprisingly little about the rivalry between the kings of France and England except where it directly affected the Limousin. Instead, he paid more attention to local events, such as the burgess of Limoges who drowned himself and his sons in 1205 (pp. 64–5, 174–5) or the theft of Saint-Martial's chalice and gospel bindings in 1219 (pp. 110–11). Even his interest in the grand Christian campaign in Spain in 1212 partly arose from the participation of a large contingent from Limoges, including four of his fellow monks (pp. 82–5). Itier's chief interest was in his community's members, buildings, ornaments, benefactions and liturgy. Hence he listed the preachers who preached in the chapter (pp. 130–3), noted the precise number of golden stars painted on the abbey sepulchre (pp. 86–7), and showed a keen interest in costs and prices, not least of his abbey's sacred objects and furnishings such as the ‘ingeniously constructed Hell’ that cost 800 sous (pp. 84–5). Itier was proud of his own role in improvements to Saint-Martial's fabric and worship: when a new statue of the Virgin was erected there, he catalogued fourteen antiphons which he instituted in her honour (pp. 182–5), and he installed a clock in the abbey basilica (pp. 56–7, 220–1). Despite making a vital contribution to the biography of Richard i, Bernard Itier's scattered writings are most fascinating for what they reveal of local and monastic affairs.