Historians of early medieval hagiography and specialists on the abbey of Cluny will welcome this long anticipated critical edition and French translation of Odo of Cluny's Life of Count Gerald of Aurillac (BHL 3411). This tenth-century portrait of a perfectissimus laicus has attracted considerable attention in recent decades, in part due to an increased interest in the ideals of the late Carolingian nobility and the origins of the crusade movement. For generations, scholars have relied on the early modern edition of this vita first published in the Bibliotheca Cluniacensis (1614) and later reprinted by Migne (PL cxxxiii). With the publication of this handsome edition, historians can now approach this fascinating text with new eyes. It was clearly a challenge for Odo to create a portrait of a saint who exercised his sanctity in the tumultuous world of tenth-century Europe, rather than retreating from it to the safety of a cloister. This tension is one of the guiding principles of the text. Gerald is no typical holy man. He tonsures himself but hides the fact by wearing a hat. He founds monasteries and treats his dependants with kindness, but is not above ‘breaking the teeth of the wicked’ (Job xxix.17), especially those who assault the poor. Bultot-Verleysen provides a robust introduction to the text, which devotes considerably more attention to the author of the Vita sancti Geraldi Auriliacensis than to its subject. The introduction recounts in great detail the salient features of Odo's career as an abbot and an author (including a useful catalogue of all his known works), proposes a new date for the composition of the vita (between 927 and 931, at the beginning of Odo's abbacy), and argues that ‘l'exhortation des puissants’ (p. 30) was one of the key objectives of the text. The historical Gerald receives a less thorough treatment because very little is known about him from contemporary sources, but Bultot-Verleysen's retelling of the events of his life (derived largely from Odo's vita) provide a useful frame of reference for readers unfamiliar with the activities and obligations of a late Carolingian noble. While the introduction is excellent, it would have been rewarding for Bultot-Verleysen to have explored at greater length the affinities between Odo and Gerald. Odo abandoned the secular world at around the age of twenty, but if he had not joined a monastic community, he might have ended up leading a life very similar to that of Gerald. It is worth considering the degree to which the Life of Count Gerald is informed by Odo's reflections on an unrealised career in the world that he left behind.