Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/324

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316 SHORT NOTICES April ideal which the supporters of this view have set before them, and it serves chiefly to warn those supporters (a warning which Christians and other idealists frequently require) that they had better avoid language which seems to confuse their achievement and their ideal. The claims of other associations besides the state are effectively presented. But those readers who feel in the most agreement with all these points, and who have long experienced doubts about the theory of the state of which Professor Bosanquet is the most effective exponent, may yet feel far from satisfied that Mr. Laski, any more than M. Duguit, has succeeded in avoiding that anarchy, of the danger of which he is well aware. Mr. Laski's projected volume on the conciliar movement would be welcome, for Dr. Figgis has taught us that much is to be hoped for in that direction. But it is still more satisfactory to learn that Mr. Laski is engaged in a systematic work on the theory of the state : for no amount of negative criticism can replace a positive and constructive theory. It will be fairer to him to wait until he has had an opportunity of developing his views on a larger scale before expressing an opinion whether he has succeeded in bridging the gaps which careful students, however great their wish to be convinced, still find in the construction erected by M. Duguit. 0. Since the outbreak of war the Annales de Bretqgne (Rennes : Plihon et Hommay) has managed to continue its issues with reasonable regularity. Between November 1914 and April 1919 it has issued volumes xxx- xxxiii, each consisting of the usual four parts, which are not much less in bulk than what was normal before the troubles began. As usual, the more important contributions consist of long series of articles, big enough to make a book, and destined, no doubt in many cases, to be republished separately on their completion, and in one case at least already so reissued. Among those deserving to be specially noted are two anonymous articles in volume xxx, parts 1 and 2, called ' Origines bretonnes', which are, however, in fact limited to a study of a psalter of English origin, preserved at Rennes, on which a sixteenth-century abbot of Saint-Jacut has inscribed a local calendar, and to an examination of the life of Saint Samson. In volume xxx, part 4, are other anonymous studies, perhaps by the same author, of which the first deals with ' Le schisme breton et I'eglise de Dol au milieu du ix^ siecle '. It is followed in the three succeeding volumes by a series of studies of the bishopric of Dol, ' la metropole de Bretagne ' until Innocent III summarily and finally subjected it to the jurisdiction of the archbishop of Tours. In eight elaborate articles the history of the see of Dol, the organization of the chapter, and the lists of its bishops are traced from their shadowy beginnings down to the execution of the last refugee bishop in 1795. The remarkable parallelisms between the history of Dol and that of St. Davids make these learned papers well worth the attention of those interested in the ecclesiastical history of South Wales. In volume xxx M. F. Quessette concludes a study, begun in volume xxv, of ' L'ad- ministration financiere en Bretagne de 1689 a 1715 ', and M. S. Canal's elaborate treatise on 'Les origines de I'intendance de Bretagne ', begun in volume xxvi, is continued in volume xxx, parts 2, 3, 4, to its conclusion.