Valois: La Pragmatiqne Sanction de Bonrges 619 these — and the present reviewer has found not many — are trifling blem- ishes in a book of such wide and conscientious erudition. jIaps and tables again enhance the usefulness of the work, which should take rank among the best of our books of reference. George L. Burr. Histoirc de la Pragmatiqne Sanction de Boiirges sous Charles VII. Par Noel Valois, Alembre de I'lnstitut. (Paris: Alphonse Picard et Fils. 1906. Pp. cxcii, 288.) One hundred and two documents are here published, drawn from the archives of the parlements of Paris and of Poitiers; the correspondence of Martin V. and the confessor of Charles VII.; the formularies of the Chancellery; the Tresor des Chartes; special compilations pertaining either to the council of Basel or to the question of Galilean liberties in the registers of St. Martin de Tours, St. fitienne de Bourges and Ste. Croix d'Orleans, together with the archive collections of Paris, the Vatican, the British Museum, the Bodleian, and the libraries of Poitiers and Carpentras. Aside from their value in the first instance, many are interesting for the information which they furnish upon the law and the diplomacy of the period ; from the point of view of language ; or merely as specimens of judicial eloquence. The element of style is especially to be remarked in the two important memoirs drawn up by Jean Jouvenal des Ursins. The Pragmatic Sanction of Bourges was the logical sequence of the findings of the reforming councils of the fifteenth centuries. At the council of Basel the question of the reform of the church in head and members was still an issue. Nicholas of Cusa, one of the most pas- sionate adversaries of the curia, there revived the principles of Gerson, but drew from them conclusions which the latter would have disavowed. Eugenius IV. in vain attempted to stem the flood. Driven from Rome by his revolted subjects and abandoned by most of the cardinals, he finally was compelled to yield, and the acts of Basel were published in the name and with the bull of the council and not under the name and seal of the pope. The acts of the council re-established the election of bishops by chapters ; laid down educational and moral qualifications for the bishops; prescribed the regular holding of provincial councils; lim- ited the right of excommunication and interdict and of appeals to Rome; established regulations governing the election and conduct of the pope; and abolished the annates required for the confirmation or collation of benefices. The secular princes were not slow to avail themselves of the political advantage afforded by the findings of the council. After the treaty of Arras and the death of Bedford, when the tide of success was unmis- takably flowing in favor of the French crown, Charles VII. frankly took advantage of the findings of the reform councils and the weakness of
