Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215-c. 1515

Abstract

"Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215-c. 1515," by R. N. Swanson, is reviewed.

Religion and Devotion in Europe, c. 1215w. 1515. By R. N. SWANSON. Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge University Press, 1995. xv + 377 pp. $69.95 cloth; $18.95 paper.

From the rather bland title of this new volume in the Cambridge Medieval Textbooks series one would not necessarily suspect the ingenious and thoughtful book Robert Swanson has written. "Ingenious" is meant entirely as a compliment here, but it should be noted that the author's previous works, especially Church and Society in Later Medieval England ( 1989), have positioned him well to think freshly about his subject. The result is a survey at once authoritative, dispassionate, and engaged.

This is seen most clearly in the middle three of his nine chapters, on "Religion and life," "Devotion," and "The pilgrimage of life and death." In the first he juxtaposes two dimensions, liturgical experience and the various expressions of what he calls "a structured life"-a useful alternative term to cover the extension of the idea of religious regularity (in the literal sense of regula, rule) from tightly organized post-Lateran IV religious orders to "Domestic regularity," as seen for example in the proliferation of family chapels in Florentine churches (p. 123). Under the umbrella term "Devotion" are grouped such aspects as the patterns of saint-making in the later Middle Ages, the question of how new saints' cults were created, and the related matter of relics, while under the "Pilgrimage of life" are surveyed topics including morbidity (as in the danse macabre), apocalyptic expectation, fraternities, and (inevitably) indulgences.

The preliminary blurb points out that "avoiding the history of institutional structures, the book concentrates on the spirituality which the medieval church sought to promulgate and control." Each of those latter verbs is somewhat questionable, but overall the statement is true, which is why those readers will profit most from the book who already have a basic background in the political and ecclesiastical history of the period. A map and a list of popes would at the minimum have been helpful.

In a work which is part of a textbook series, even one as superior as this one from Cambridge, we cannot expect documentation of every detail that arouses the reader's interest. Nonetheless a few places cry out for a reference, whether problematic assertions like "Each parish church was meant to have one mass a day" (p. 98), believe-it-or-not facts like the supposed aggregate of 39,245,120 years in indulgences amassed by Cardinal Albert of Brandenburg (p. 221), or points mentioned only in passing like seclusion liturgies for lepers (p. 297). Many footnote references are given,just not enough.

Nor is it quite fair to complain if a particular source or work of scholarship seems not to have been drawn on; but it is surprising that the bibliography, admittedly selective, should lack such titles as Miri Rubin's Charity and Community in Medieval Cambridge (1987) or Diana Wood's Pope Clement VI (1989), both vital for subjects treated here. Much more serious is the paucity of illustrations: only six, printed on text pages and all reinforcing some point within the text. Would it have added unmanageably to the cost of production to have also depicted, say, a great Cotswold "wool" church, Milan cathedral, a leaf from a French Book of Hours, and a piece of Opus Anglicanum needlework?

These matters aside, as a resource for fairly advanced university teaching the text could scarcely be bettered. Through his firm grasp of a very wide range of material and through his lucid, always interesting presentation of it, Swanson has done teachers and, more widely, students of the subject a marked service.