When first we introduced to the notice of our readers Mgr. Theiner's _Vetera Monumenta_, we promised to make early return to the subject, and to furnish some account of the treasures of ecclesiastical history contained therein. That promise we now set ourselves to fulfil. The chief difficulty in the way of our present undertaking is created by the rich superabundance of the varied materials which Mgr. Theiner's industry has reunited and given to the world. A collection of one thousand and sixty-four documents, in which are registered the shifting phases of most of the important events in Church and State in Ireland and Scotland which occupied the attention of thirty-seven Roman Pontiffs, from 1216 to 1547, offers to research so vast a field, and so boundless, that we may well be pardoned if we feel puzzled where to begin. Our attention is, however, arrested on the very threshold of the work by a question than which few others are more interesting to Irishmen; namely, what position did the Roman Pontiffs take up in the questions between Ireland and England at the beginning of the thirteenth century? Did they, as has often been alleged, leave unreproved the iniquities perpetrated in this country by the English, and, forgetful of their own proper duties as Fathers of Christendom, did they shut their heart against the cries wrung by oppression from a persecuted race? or did they, on the contrary, stand forth in defence of the weak against the strong, and here, as everywhere else, with apostolic justice, judge the poor of the people, and save the children of the poor, and humble the oppressor? The documents published in the first pages of the work under notice supply us with materials to answer this question in the sense most favourable to the Apostolic See. An examination of these documents shall form the subject of our present notice.