Correspondance Historique des Bénédictins Bretons

This work, edited by Arthur Le Moyne de La Borderie (1853), uncovers the previously untold history of one of the great works of Benedictine scholarship, Gui Alexis Lobineau's Histoire de Bretagne, published in 1707. Consisting of letters exchanged among Lobineau and his primary helpers in the project, the Correspondance provides insight into one of eighteenth-century France's most subtle historical minds and aims to show, in Le Moyne de La Borderie's words, not simply the writer and scholar, but the man. The Correspondance also sheds light upon the controversy that nearly prevented the publication of the Histoire, pitting Lobineau against the powerful Rohan dynasty. An appendix of rare and unedited documents offers further political context for Lobineau's legacy. This volume of letters, itself a fascinating work of scholarship, remains a key witness to one of the defining collaborative efforts of Breton historiography.