Page:American Historical Review, Volume 12.djvu/637

 Acioti : Canibindge Modern History 627 for. Pope Paul IV., who in 1555 "had apparently desired to show that Rome was not to be outdone by Geneva in persecuting rigor and that, if Calvin in 1553 had burnt Servet for denying the Trinity, he could be equally zealous for the faith," and had decreed by a general bull that " all who denied the Trinity, the divinity of Christ, his concep- tion through the Holy Ghost, his death for human salvation, or the perpetual virginity of the Virgin, and who did not confess to inquisitors and abjure their errors within three months, and all who in future should maintain those heresies," should forthwith suffer the penalty of relapsed heretics, bestowed in 1559 on the Spanish Inquisition the further power of dealing thus with all heretics counted dangerous or insincere. Yet Mr. Lea is inclined to think the importance of the Protestant movement in Spain to have been greatly exaggerated. " There never ", he says (p. 411), "was the slightest real danger that Protestantism could make such permanent impression on the profound and unreason- ing religious convictions of Spain in the sixteenth century, as to cause disturbance in the body politic; and the excitement created in Valla- dolid and Seville, in 1558 and 1559, was a mere passing episode leaving no trace in popular beliefs." But it " raised [the Inquisition] to new life and importance and gave it a claim on the gratitude of the State, which enabled it to dominate the land during the seventeenth century"; and it " served as a reason for isolating Spain from the rest of Europe, excluding all foreign ideas, arresting the development of culture and of science, and prolonging medievalism into modern times ". Something similar might doubtless be said of the influence of heresy as a whole; for to the end, as the documents appended to this volume abundantly prove, heresy properly so called played but a minor and a dwindling part in the actual business of the Inquisition. George L. Burr. The Cambridge Modern History. Planned by the late Lord Acton, LL.D. Edited by A. W. W.rd, Litt.D., G. W. Prothero, Litt.D., and Stanley Leathes, M.A. Volume IV. The Thirty Years' War. (Cambridge: University Press; New York: The Macmillan Company. 1906. Pp. xxix, 1003.) It may well seem unnecessary to discuss further the general plan and character of the Cambridge Modern History. But before proceed- ing to the examination of this latest volume from the standpoint of the editorial plans and the standards set by the preceding issues, the present reviewer would like to express his belief that the tendency heretofore strongly shown to use this work as an argument against co-operative undertakings in the field of history has gone a little too far, and that the criticism of the editorial supervision has been at times too exacting. With regard to the judgment of co-operative undertakings it is perhaps worth recalling that there are at least two leading sorts, and that the sort to which the Cambridge work belongs is to be sharply distinguished AM. HIST. REV., VOL. XII. — 41.