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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...