Page:English Historical Review Volume 35.djvu/448

 440 REVIEWS OF BOOKS July therefore have been 895, which agrees with the year of the episcopate, and is not inconsistent with the Annus Domini, if, as Dr. Levison himself suggests, the year began at Easter. I am also unable to see any sufficient reason for identifying Savaric of Auxerre with Savaric of Orleans (p. 41) ; translations were in those times rare. In the introduction to the life of Lupus is a difficulty which I cannot solve. On p. 289 Dr. Krusch says that he formerly dated this at the end of the eighth or beginning of the ninth century, but now places it a few decades earlier ' ineunte aevo Carolingico ' (751) ; yet on p. 285 he says that it was used by Bede (d. 735). In the note on the intruded Bishop Milo of Rheims on p. 71 a reference might have been made to Th. Wiistenfeld's article in Forschungen zur deutschenGeschichte, iii, 386 ff. (cf. p. 149 ff.), from which it would seem that he belonged to the family of the later Spoletine emperors. On p. 340 xii Kal. September is by a slip equated with 21 October. By this edition the spuriousness of the passage in the Translation of Germanus by which the birth of Charles the Great was dated in 747 must be regarded as placed beyond dispute, since the Berlin manuscript of the tenth century (previously uncollated) agrees with the ninth-century Farfa manuscript in the National Library at Rome in omitting it. In these days of national enmities it is pleasant to end by recording the words in which Dr. Krusch refers to his visit to England in 1913 : ' saeviente Marte grato animo reminisci iuvat humanissime me tunc ibi receptum esse.' E. W. Brooks. Benedictine Monachisin ; Studies in Benedictine Life and Rule. By the Right Rev. Cuthbert Butler, Abbot of Downside Abbey. (London : Longmans, 1919.) The purpose of this volume is the setting forth of the principles and working of the Benedictine rule. Its method is that of a series of essays or studies dealing with the life and activities of those who have followed it, in various aspects, from the time of St. Benedict to the present day, in the light of what may be known of St. Benedict's own ideals and purpose, and of the rule itself. The subject is a large and many-sided one ; and there are probably few writers who could be thought to possess, in the same degree as the abbot of Downside, the varied historical knowledge and practical experience required for its adequate treatment. His knowledge of the rule itself may be said to be exceptionally minute and exact ; though many others are well acquainted with the texius receptus, he has gone care- fully into the authorities for the text, and has produced a critical edition of it. His knowledge of earlier monastic institutions in east and west enables him to judge and estimate with special clearness the features of the rule which distinguish it in respect of its character and of the ideal which underlies it, and to see how far St. Benedict was intentionally setting aside certain ideals of earlier monastic life, and forming a standard of another type. And his personal experience as monk and as abbot, with the knowledge he has obtained by acquaintance with Benedictine monasteries in various countries throughout Europe, when combined with the qualifica- tions already mentioned, give him special advantages for forming a well-