Page:English Historical Review Volume 37.djvu/470

 462 SHORT NOTICES July the occasion. The general impression given by the book is casual, desultory, even capricious and perplexing. Mr. Charles Singer, who had the advan- tage of dealing with a clearly defined subject which he has made his own, writes a straightforward and useful paper on the development of medieval science. (He seems, by the way, to repeat the persistent error that Grosseteste was a Franciscan.) Mr. Wildon Carr's paper on philosophy is, on the other hand, a discussion of ancient, modern, and incidentally of medieval ' dominating concepts '. Mr. Claude Jenkins, whose wide learning and acuteness find expression in a somewhat tantalizing style, writes on religion as though he were indulging in a pleasant causerie among friends as well-read as he is himself. At the other extreme we have from Mr. Adair a slight, nicely written essay on the gild movement. Of the five remaining papers, Miss Johnstone's on society and Mr. J. W. Allen's on politics are noteworthy because, from different points of view, both are clear and direct attempts to show how ever-present problems were faced in the middle ages, whether, as Miss Johnstbne prefers to show, in the exceptional or secondary expressions of medieval life, or, as Mr. Allen urges, in the funda- mental questionings of the great schoolmen. F. M. P. The study of Englands Beziehungen zu den Niederlanden bis 1154, by Dr. J.-M. Toll (no. 145 of the series of ' Historische Studien ' edited by Dr. Ebering), is a valuable contribution to English history. Taking the missionary journeys of SS. Boniface and Willibrord as a starting-point, Dr. Toll has examined in detail the connexion of England and the Low countries through the Anglo-Saxon and Norman periods. Relations of a political character may be said to have begun with j9thelwulf's marriage with Judith, daughter of Charles the Bald, who, after her husband's death, married first her stepson and then Baldwin, count of Flanders. Henceforward a close connexion was maintained with Flanders, and especially with the two great Flemish abbeys of St. Bertin and of St. Peter at Ghent (Blandinium), which from early times was endowed with English possessions in the neighbourhood of Greenwich, Woolwich, and Lewisham. From St. Bertin probably came Grimbald, the friend and fellow worker of Alfred, but his identification, as Mr. Stevenson pointed out, 1 with the Grimbald who played an important part in the appointment of Fulk, archbishop of Rheims, as abbot of St. Bertin in 892 is not beyond dispute, nor is the attempt of Dr. Toll to prove the identity, largely on the evidence of the fourteenth-century writer, John of Ypres, entirely convincing. Mr. Plummer, 2 commenting on the entry in the chronicle referring to the death in 981 of Womar, abbot of St. Peter's at Ghent, says 'he resigned his abbacy and retired to the New Minster at Winchester ', and supports his statement with evidence from the Liber Vitae of Hyde Abbey. Dr. Toll disputes this, and asserts that he died as abbot of St. Peter's. The point is of little importance and must remain in doubt, but Dr. Toll makes a curious blunder when he attempts to prove his assertion ; for his main evidence is drawn from a letter of Gerbert which he quotes from the selection given in Bouquet, adding in a foot-note that Havet has omitted it from his edition of the Letters. Havet in fact has included the letter 1 Asser, p. 309. * Two Saxon Chonicks, ii. 169.