son Andreas who came to Frankfort. Thomas Platter nowhere lauds the Frankfort fair; and it was not in Herwagen's service that he visited it— though he managed Herwagen's business at Basel, while Herwagen went. Feyerabend, the greatest of Frankfort printers, should hardly have been mentioned without citation of Pallmann's monograph; and we should have been told where the much quoted Marckschiff can be found. The "Mess-Memorial" of Michael Harder, from which a page is printed in facsimile, is not a catalogue, but an account-book; and the "list of book titles in Michel Harder's catalogue" which is here reprinted in full is not, as might be inferred, a part of that "Mess-Memorial ", but compiled by its modern editors to explain it.

Vexatious as are such oversights in such a book, they cannot seriously mar the solid worth of its narrative; and so chattily, so sensibly, with so catching a love of books and their makers, is the story told that all else will gladly be pardoned it.

Le Concordat de 1516: Ses Origines, son Histoire au XVIe Siècle. Par l'Abbé JULES THOMAS, Chanoine Honoraire. In three parts. (Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils. 1910. Pp. xii, 448; 415; 479.) EACH of these three volumes covers a definite field in the history of the Concordat of 1516. Part I. deals with the origin of the Concordat; part II. with its application; part III. with the subsequent history of the instrument down to 1589. The work is printed with the imprimatur of the Bishop of Dijon. The subject was originally proposed by the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques, in 1905, but it may be doubted if the French government, in the light of the recent dissolution of the Concordat of 1801, approves of the author's findings.

The work is an advanced expression of modern Catholic reactionism. Its medievalism is startling. The Abbé Thomas assumes the position of St. Thomas Aquinas and that whosoever may have added to or taken from the words of the great Dominican thwarts the divine legation of the Church. In part I., pages 9-28, a series of theses are set up which remind one of the schoolmen, in sustaining which the author "quotes Scripture for his purpose ", besides encyclicals of Gregory XVI., Pius IX., and Leo XIII., a letter of Pope Gelasius (492-496), one of Osius, bishop of Cordova, to Constantine, treatises of Geoffrey of Vendome and Yves of Chartres, findings of the councils of Orleans in 511 and of Macon in 585, and the Code of Gratian.

"La société civile n'est point née d'un contrat social ni des suffrages d'un peuple. Elle est issue de la nature même de l'homme, en qui Dieu a imprimé l'instinct de s'associer à ses semblables et le désir de la vie commune. . . . À ce point de vue, le contrat social et les suffrages du peuple, tant vantés par Rousseau, ne sont que des pétitions de principe. . . . La société civile est confinée tout entière dans les limites de l'ordre naturel. . . . Tout autre apparaît la société religieuse. . . . Elle use des biens de l'ordre naturel, mais pour y ajouter ceux d'un ordre supérieur,

celui de la grâce." These are words in which the voice of Boniface VIII. in Unam Sanctam seems to sound like an alien echo. There is "une royauté spirituelle "-the Church, and "une autre royauté "— the State. "L'ancienne tradition s'affirme sur ce sujet d'une manière unanime. Au Moyen Age, la doctrine est la même et nous en entendrons plus loin les échos. Les papes modernes s'expriment avec autant de netteté devant les gouvernements."

The doctrine of the separation of Church and State is "des opinions fausses et perverses"; Leo XIII.'s declaration that "it is an absurd theory" is endorsed.

It is a relief to pass from this medieval atmosphere into a genuine historical chapter upon the Concordat as an institution and a discussion of the sources. The author has well-nigh exhausted the archive collections of Paris, the Vatican, Venice, Modena, and Florence, the Florentine sources being especially valuable. The remainder of part I. is a detailed study of the relations of France and the Holy See from Philip IV. to Francis I. The volume concludes with eighteen unpublished documents. In general it may be said that while the author so far has added nothing new of importance, much of the detail is new.

Part II. is purely institutional. It deals with church nominations, reserves, collations, ecclesiastical causes, appeals, canonical censure, and the morality of the clergy. Historically this portion is of real value; the actual working of the Concordat is shown. Fortunately there is little room for the author to assert medieval theories, but the foreword gives protection-salva auctoritate ecclesiae.

"Les rapports de l'Église et de l'État sont plus que jamais à l'ordre du jour. La manière dont la question fut résolue au XVIe siècle n'est pas sans intérêt pour le XX. La face des choses a changé; mais les principes sont restés les mêmes, parce qu'ils planent au-dessus de toutes les contingences."

The third part has to deal with the history of the Concordat from its signature to the end of the Valois dynasty. The medieval viewpoint remains the same. The author regrets the dependence of the State upon the Church required in the agreement of Boulogne, and that the Church became "concordataire" in the sixteenth century, but finds consolation in the reflection that government support during the Reformation was needful. This last volume is much less fully annotated, and seems to be based largely upon secondary material. Chapter v., dealing with the States General of 1560, is particularly weak. Neither the works of the Chancellor L'Hôpital nor Isambert's Collection des Lois has been used; antiquated historians of the States General are cited and modern literature entirely ignored.

To sum up: The value of these three volumes consists chiefly in the wealth of new documents printed as pièces justificatives. The point of view is so medieval and the treatment of the subject so ex parte that their historical value is invalidated throughout. It remains for some

future scholar to use in a scientific manner the documents here brought to light.

J. W. T.

England und die Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth und den Stuarts. Von ARNOLD OSKAR MEYER. Erster Band. England und die Katholische Kirche unter Elisabeth. [Bibliothek des Kgl. Preussischen Historischen Instituts in Rom. Band VI.] (Rome: Loescher and Company. 1911. Pp. xxvii, 489.)

THIS stately volume by a former member of the Royal Prussian Historical Institute in Rome, now a professor in Rostock, is a noteworthy contribution to the right understanding of an involved and disputed period of English history. The author has not only laid under contribution the archives of Rome, especially the treasures of the Vatican, but has made extensive use of unpublished material in Great Britain, and has enjoyed the assistance and advice of the leading specialists in this field. The result is a significant addition to our means of comprehending the relations of the English Catholics with the Elizabethan government, and with the papacy, Spain, and their exiled compatriots on the Continent.

No question has been more controverted than the proportion of Roman Catholics to the general population of England under Elizabeth. Dr. Meyer subjects the problem to careful consideration and reaches the apparently conclusive result that the Roman adhesion, by 1580, was not more than 2.6 to 3 per cent. of the total population of the kingdom, and that, while it undoubtedly increased, its growth to 1680 was not more than proportionate to the general augmentation of the population. Elizabeth's success was made possible only by the smallness of the Catholic minority. The great falling away from the Roman obedience was in the first years of Elizabeth. The collapse of the ancient hierarchy, the attractiveness of services in the mother-tongue, the popularity of the strong and peaceful early reign of Elizabeth, and especially the total neglect of the spiritual interests of the Roman Catholics by the pope and their Continental fellow-believers till after the Bull of Deposition and the beginnings of the English mission, swept the bulk of the population into the Anglican communion. This process was assisted, Dr. Meyer holds, by the very important modification of the title of supremacy assumed by Elizabeth as compared with that worn by Henry VIII.—a difference the significance of which he believes to have been inadequately estimated. This great religious readjustment was not primarily the effect of legal pressure.

When at last Catholic zeal, especially that of England's own sons, undertook to regain the land through seminary priests, and later through Jesuits, a chapter was written which Dr. Meyer, Protestant though he is, shows to be one of the most heroic in missionary story. For the Roman missionaries as a whole the charge that they were conspirators

or deceitful when brought face to face with the government is false. There were conspirators enough on the Continent, but most of those who risked their lives in England were simply and honestly actuated by spiritual aims. Yet, even so, the situation was tragic in its impossibility of adjustment. The "bloody question ", whether, in case of invasion, the missionary would hold to the party of the queen or that of the pope, was one which the government could hardly fail to put, the more so that the missionary priest was the adviser of the Catholic laity, and to give either answer was, to most missionaries, to risk soul or body. The persecutions under Elizabeth, cruel as they were, were marked by a statesmanlike policy absent from those of Mary and from those of contemporary Continental sovereigns, and by a relatively small number of victims.

The author shows, as has never been so conclusively exhibited before, that plots to murder Elizabeth, though not originating with the pope, had the full sympathy and moral support of Gregory XIII. His account of the Armada is valuable, but here he is on more familiar ground. Its defeat he ascribes justly to the skill of the English seamen and their new naval tactics. Lastly he sketches with great insight the quarrels in the ranks of the English Catholics themselves between the secular priesthood and the Jesuits, and the diverse policies, national and religious, pursued by the rival factions. The value of the volume is increased by a large appendix of hitherto unpublished documents, and a chronological list of manuscript sources, chiefly in Rome, with indication. where they may be found. The two further volumes, in which the author proposes to continue his studies to 1689, will be awaited with anticipation.

WILLISTON WALKER.

The Reconstruction of the English Church. By ROLAND G. Usher, Ph.D., Instructor in History, Washington University. In two volumes. (New York: D. Appleton and Company. 1910. Pp. ix, 423; vi, 426.)

As in political, so in church history, it used to be the earlier part of Queen Elizabeth's reign which attracted the special interest of researchers. Father H. N. Birt has only recently reminded us that "the Elizabethan religious settlement" continues to be a fighting ground for Protestant and Catholic historians. Mr. Usher may claim the merit of drawing our attention to the less conspicuous problems of the constitutional settlement of the Church. He holds that the constitutional question was not seriously grappled with before the times of the great reorganizer, Archbishop Bancroft, the hero of his book. "Few things are more difficult for us to comprehend, who have been brought up to believe that the English Church was established in its present form by Elizabeth, than the great scope of the reconstruction of 1604" (I. 357). If his thesis is provable at all, Mr. Usher certainly is the man to do it

and to introduce a new reading into our ideas of English church history. His researches are solid, extensive, and critical. He has made use of unprinted materials-part of which are published as appendices to the second volume-to a much greater extent than other students in this section of church history. With all his minuteness, however, he never loses himself in mere detail, always combining painstaking statistical work with a broad view of the subject. Although, in a few cases, he goes perhaps a little too far in filling up gaps of tradition by means of supposition, he is, on the whole, careful to realize the limits of attainable knowledge. His judgment is sound and unbiassed. He is equally fair to the Anglican, the Puritan, and the Catholic, though his inward sympathy is on the side of the Church. It is his large, dispassionate view of all parties, his clear insight into the motive powers of Elizabethan and Jacobean church life, together with a great amount of new material, that will secure to these volumes unanimous recognition as a valuable contribution to our knowledge of the subject. This worth will not be lessened, even if the leading idea of the book should not be received in such a full sense as the author wishes to have it recognized.

The arrangement of the work is, partly, a weak point. Though it is easy and pleasant to read, as far as its style is concerned, which is always clear and often noble, the author is, at least in the first and third books, not as fortunate in the arrangement of his vast materials. What he offers in the first book is, for the greater part, a series of separate essays, well shaped in themselves, united under a common heading, but lacking either a cogent logical connection or chronological order. Besides, in some of these essays, the contents only to a small extent coincide with their respective titles. These deficiencies, enhanced through the absence of a detailed table of contents, make it at times difficult to find out where a certain topic is treated.

The first book, "Preparation for Reconstruction" (1583-1603) plainly shows the constitutional defectiveness of the Elizabethan Church, hitherto not realized to its full extent. After all, if the Church stood its ground during the queen's long and stormy reign, it may be juridically correct, but certainly not historically adequate, to describe its constitution as a legal chaos, or as a series of temporary makeshifts of disputable validity, still requiring fundamental "reconstruction". Perhaps the most important, certainly the most difficult task, undertaken in the first book, is the attempt to show, on statistical foundations, the proportional strength and the geographical distribution of Anglicans, Catholics, and Puritans. Even he who cannot agree with all of Mr. Usher's conjectures, will admire the amount of reliable work which is evidenced in three maps of England, showing the distribution of Catholic laymen, of Puritan ministers, and of Churchmen in 1603. The most impugnable point seems to me to be the author's conception of Catholic and Puritan forces in relation to the total of the English population. He gives the Puritans "perhaps fifty thousand able-bodied men (I. 280); this equals,