DÖLLINGER'S HISTORICAL WORK 42 I
between his earlier and his later life. T\venty years of his historical work are lost for history. The revolution in method since he began to \vrite was partly the better use of old authorities, partly the accession of ne\v. Döllinger had devoted himself to the one in 1 86 3; he passed to the other in 1864. For definite objects he had often consulted manuscripts, but the harvest was stacked away, and had scarcely influenced his works. In the use and knowledge of unpublished matter he still belonged to the old school, and was on a level with Neander. Although, in later years, he printed six or seven volumes of lnedita, like Mai and Theiner he did not excel as an editor: and this part of his labours is notable chiefly for its effect on himself. He never went over altogether to men like Schottmüller, who said of him that he Inade no research-er hat nicht geforscht- meaning that he had made his mind up about the Templars by the easy study of Wilkins, Michelet, Schottmüller himself, and perhaps a hundred others, but had not gone underground to the mines they del ved In. Fustel de Coulanges, at the time of his death, was promoting the election of the Bishop of Oxford to the Institute, on the ground that he surpassed all other Englishmen in his acquaintance with manuscripts. Döllinger agreed with their French rival in his estimate of our English historian, but he ascribed less value to that part of his acquirements. He assured the Bavarian Academy that Mr. Freeman, who reads print, but nevertheless mixes his colours with brains, is the author of the most profound work on the Middle Ages ever written in this country, and is not only a brilliant writer and a sagacious critic, but the most learned of all our countrymen. Ranke once drew a line at I 5 14, after which, he said, we still want help from un printed sources. The world had moved a good deal since that cautious innova- tion, and after I 860, enormous and excessive masses of archive were brought into play. The Italian Revolution opened tempting horizons. In 1864 Döllinger spent his vacation in the libraries of Vienna and Venice. At
