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 108 REVIEWS OF BOOKS January Ainsi, grace a Psellos et aux disciples qu'il avait formes, les Byzantins ont conserve pendant le Moyen Age, et transmis aux savants du xv e siecle, les doctrines d'Aristote et surtout celles de Platon et des Plotiniens qui sont a la base de la Renaissance. Car l'influence de Platon et des Alexandrins se fit sentir au xv e et au xvi e siecle, non seulement sur la philosophic rnais encore sur les lettres et les arts. The words ' a la base de la Renaissance ' overstate any just claim that can be made for Byzantium. A similar overstatement is to be found on p. 108 : ' L'humanisme de la Renaissance lui-meme eut plus tard sa source dans l'ecole de Constantinople du xi e siecle.' For the rest there can be nothing but thanks for this book, and it is to be hoped that the author will fulfil the wish expressed in the introduction, and go on to give us a history of Byzantine philosophy from the closing of the school of Athens. The book is provided with a classified bibliography, an index, and a Table des Matieres so full as to be a useful analysis of the argu- ment. R. M. Dawkins. Chapters in the Administrative History of England : The Wardrobe, the » Chamber, and the Small Seals. By T. F. Tout. Vols, i and ii. (Man- chester : University Press, 1920.) These most instructive volumes are an instalment of a work which has been long in preparation. Some of their conclusions were provisionally and shortly formulated in the fifth chapter of the author's Place of Edward II in English History (1914), and the appendixes to that work contain materials which every reader of the Chapters should consult. The Household Ordinance of 1279, which is the longest of the new docu- ments published in the Chapters (vol. ii, pp. 158-63), must be collated with the Ordinances of 1318 and 1323 which are printed in the Place of Edward II (pp. 270-318). The new descriptions of the wardrobe and the privy seal under Edward II (Chapters, ii. 224-313) are partly based upon the lists of household and wardrobe officials which are given in the earlier work (pp. 353-7). The main idea which has led Professor Tout to these researches is explained in the introduction to the new book : Even under modern conditions, administration is more important than legislation ; in the middle ages, when legislation was small in amount and largely declaratory in character, the administrative side of history bulked immensely larger (Chapters, i. 4-5). He represents, as he elsewhere puts it, a reaction against the doctrine that parliament is the central point of our medieval constitution ; a reaction which has been stimulated by the example of French medieval students such as Langlois, Morel, Deprez, and Viollet. To discuss the relative importance of legislative and executive in the middle ages would carry us far beyond the limits of a review. We will only remark that the tendency with which Mr. Tout identifies himself is not confined to students of the middle ages, but is abundantly illustrated by recent work in the fields of Greek and Roman history. Whether it is merely one more symptom of a sceptical reaction against nineteenth- century liberalism, or whether it is really based upon a new and deeper conception of the nature of civilized government, time alone can show.