This collection contains a selection of articles written by Ludo Milis, who recently retired as Professor of Medieval History at Ghent (Belgium). Previously published either in relatively obscure places or in Dutch, they are now available in English. Originally, a historian of religion and mentalities, Milis's contributions to the study of monastic history in the Low Countries, especially that of hermits and Augustinian canons are well known. It is therefore appropriate that the first half of the book (parts i and ii) is devoted to the problems of conversion in the Low Countries and a study of church institutions (pp. 53–169), and two articles on the hermits and canons (pp. 169–246). Dispute settlement in medieval monastic rules is the subject of another article (pp. 271–90). In all his work Milis has always paid attention to material culture, so the third part concentrates on particular examples: the seals of counts Thierry of Alsace (1128–68) and Philip of Alsace (1168–91) (pp. 249–70), and the so-called Byzantine Cross of Einame, the origins of which are traced in a fascinating detective story (pp. 291–326). Less well known is Milis's significant work on bilingualism in Flanders, the language frontier with France, and the cultural history of Franco-Flemish relations in the Middle Ages. The fourth and final section of the book contains three articles on this topic; they are a must for anyone who is interested in bilingualism, multi-ethnicity and cultural exchange in areas where more than one language is spoken. Whereas in post-Conquest England, bilingualism became the norm for the conquering elite, in Flanders bilingualism only became fashionable amongst the aristocracy from the mid twelfth-century onwards, not as a result of political conquest, for Flanders had always belonged to the French crown, but as a result of closer collaboration between a childless Count Philip of Alsace and the French and Anglo-Norman elite who all spoke (variations of) French. These articles are also important for the attention they pay to the survival, albeit patchy, of the Dutch language in what was known as French Flanders, now north-west France, including Boulogne, Saint-Omer and Lille, where Dutch was spoken well into the eighteenth century. A bibliography of Ludo Milis's publications, compiled by Steven Vanderputten, can be found on pp. 25–44. Last but not least, it should be noted that perhaps his most crucial contribution to medieval scholarship consists of the web-based database Narrative sources for the Low Countries (www.narrative-sources.be), which now also encompasses the sources for the Netherlands.