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Pope Gregory VII, 1073-1085. By H. E.J. Cowdrey (NewYork: Clarendon Press, Oxford University Press. 1998. Pp. xvi, 743. $150.00.) It has been more than fifty years since anyone has attempted a full-scale biography of Pope Gregory VII, one of the most influential personalities of the entire Middle Ages, who lent his name to the Gregorian reform of the eleventh century when the future course of the relationship between Church and monarchy was altered profoundly and irrevocably. This daunting task has been admirably accomplished by Professor Cowdrey. For many years his publications-such as the new edition with a facing-page English translation of known letters of Gregory VII that circulated but are not preserved in the pontiff's extant register or his studies of the Berengar affair-led up to this volume, which at long last provides English speakers with the essential key to the understanding and appreciation of history and politics in the central Middle Ages, not to mention the evolution of the religious outlook which led inevitably to the medieval papal monarchy. The clearly written narrative, divided into thirteen chapters, presents the background (pp. 1-26) and the beginnings of Hildebrand up to his election to the papacy in 1073, when he adopted the name Gregory VII (pp. 27-74), a name that according to Cowdrey was designed to honor Gregory VI (p. 74). Subsequently the book deals with Gregory VII in relation to the various regions of...