The protocols surrounding ceremonial – both public and private – have deep roots, reaching back for several centuries. Questions about the seniority of election or admission and the appropriate place of an individual in the formal life of an institution have a long history. Precedence and positions of seniority continue to regulate public events. Such questions are no less topical in corporate bodies, such as governmental, educational and religious institutions. In such an environment place is invested with a particular significance. A consideration of these topics is explored in this excellent collection of studies, ranging from the Middle Ages to the early modern period. Space, place and motion are considered in the context of religious fraternities, guilds and companies. The routes of processions are skillfully choreographed with pauses en route, accentuating the profile and antiquity of the place visited. An overview of the principal issues is provided by the opening essay by Bullen Presciutti. A sample of three articles offers a flavour of this attractive monograph.

The fifteen contributions are divided into three parts, the first of which examines ‘Spaces of Piety and Charity’ which includes five papers by Anu Mänd, Laura Dierksmeier, Ellen Decraene and Cormac Begadon. Arie van Steensel's ‘Identifying contextual factors: religious confraternities in Norwich and Leiden, c.1300–1550’ compares and contrasts two cities. Religious confraternities brought both spiritual and material benefits to their members. Documentary traces of these guilds become more visible in fourteenth-century England. Evidence indicates that in both cities confraternities attracted a significant membership. The two cities experienced different demographical fates in the later Middle Ages. The East Anglian city reached its peak in the early fourteenth century, but its population fell sharply after the Black Death. Leiden was a small but fast-growing town in the early fourteenth century with an estimated population of 4,000 inhabitants by about 1350. Its real expansion occurred in the fifteenth century, reaching a demographic peak of between 12,000 and 14,000 in 1498. By the end of the thirteenth century Norwich had approximately sixty parishes; some forty-six of these remained in the early sixteenth century. In contrast, there were three parishes at Leiden which served the same sized population. In Leiden the urban authorities kept a strong grip on the appointment of churchwardens, who were recruited from the ranks of the urban ruling elite. The churchwardens at Norwich, in contrast, had a less prominent role; their accounts for this period have not been preserved. It is probable that as early as 1449 the mayor and aldermen of Norwich ordered the thirty-two craft guilds to participate annually in a procession on Corpus Christi day and other major feasts. There were two main processions at Leiden, on Corpus Christi day and Our Lady on the sixth Sunday after Easter. Bequests to parish churches were the norm, while legacies to guilds were the exception.

The second part, ‘Spaces of Ritual and Theatre’, includes articles by Andrew Chen, Barbara Wisch, Pamela A.V. Stewart and Meryl Bailey. Rebekah Perry's ‘On the road to Emmaus: Tivoli's “inchinata” procession and the evolving allegorical landscape of the late medieval city’ analyses one of the oldest religious rites in the region of Lazio, an annual procession on the eve of the feast of the Assumption in the city of Tivoli. The earliest extant reference to the procession occurs in 1305, but the procession goes back to the twelfth century and features an early twelfth-century wooden triptych depicting Christ enthroned and in the gesture of blessing. On the vigil of the feast the triptych is borne from the cathedral by the Confraternità del Salvatore and it is followed by the bishop and the senior clergy. The procession wends its way around the historical centre of the city and halts at the Ponte Gregriano, the bridge over the river Anio, and before the hospital of St John the Evangelist. Its destination is the piazza of the Franciscan church of Santa Maria Maggiore. There the masons’ guild collects the Madonna delle Grazie, a thirteenth-century image. The two confraternities incline their respective images towards each other thrice in a triple bow of salutation. The inchinata symbolises the apocryphal reunion of the Blessed Virgin with her Son at the close of her mortal life. Over the centuries there have been adjustments to the ritual, as the procession reflected the emergence of new institutions, especially hospitals which fostered the concept of dispensing charity to Christ, the wayfarer, bound for Emmaus, with connotations of pilgrimage.

The third part, ‘Spaces of Identity and Rivalry’, includes contributions from Kira Maye Albinsky, Caroline Blondeau-Morizot, Douglas N. Dow and Ellen Alexandra Dooley. Danielle Carrabino's ‘Oratories of the Compagnie of Palermo: sacred spaces of rivalry’ observes that the confraternities of the city participated in public processions to commemorate feast days. Confraternities were established in Sicily from the beginning of the thirteenth century with the common purpose of pursuing acts of communal prayer and penitence. Compagnie often grew out of them and they formed independent groups. Membership of the compagnie was extended to the highest ranks of political, mercantile and religious life in Palermo. The wealth of their members resulted in large sums of money being lavished on the private oratories, whose altar pieces were frequently painted by leading artists from the mainland and beyond Italy. Commissions were awarded to Caravaggio, Anthony van Dijk and Carlo Maratti. This artistic opulence reflected the prestige of the respective compagnie. Reflecting the emphases of the Council of Trent, the compagnie engaged in charitable activities, such as visiting the sick, collecting alms for the needy, distributing bread and caring for widows and foundlings. The hierarchy by which compagnie were organised reflected the social strata of the city, a fact which was made visible during religious processions, when compagnie were ordered according to the year of their foundation. This is a pleasing and fine collection of stimulating papers which will be warmly welcomed by students of urban and religious history.