The twenty-two papers in this volume originated in a conference held at the University of Wales Conference Centre at Gregynog Hall, Powys. Like all such collective volumes the contributions vary greatly in subject matter, in approach and, it must be said, in quality. This diffuse character is partly a reflection of the size and variety of the subject matter. Nearly two hundred separate houses of canons are mentioned in the text; many others once existed but receive no attention. Furthermore the various orders of canons, the Augustinians, the Premonstratensians and the Gilbertines, while sharing a common root, differed substantially in their traditions, customs and practices. Moreover the geographical spread of the volume is extensive, embracing not only medieval England but also Wales, Scotland and Ireland, with their differing social, economic and political circumstances. Contributors meet this challenge in various ways, inevitably reflecting the chilling scholastic dictum Nemo dat quod non habet. Hence their contributions mirror their current particular interests rather than any over-riding sense of editorial direction. There are largely self-contained studies of individual houses, such as St Gregory's Priory, Canterbury, or the tiny priory of St Mary and St Leonard at Wombridge in Shropshire. Historians of architecture and art naturally follow their bent in an account of the early development of the buildings at Sempringham, in an attempt at the reconstruction of the remains of Thurgarton Priory, and in a perceptively revealing study of ‘visual retrospection’, or tangible expressions of collective memory, within English Augustinian houses. Yet, as the last contributor refreshingly admits ‘there is nothing in general which distinguishes the visual retrospection of the English Augustinians from that of other religious organisations in the later Middle Ages’. Other thematic studies are equally free-standing in nature. An account of later corrodies tells us much about the predatory nature of the royal government. A study of ‘foodways’ illustrates the symbolism of both food and gift-giving within medieval society. Both seem at best tangential to the main theme of the volume. Other studies, particularly of smaller houses, come to grief on the lack of evidence. An account of Welsh houses scarcely justifies its author's hope that it is ‘frequently possible to establish fairly elaborate histories of individual communities’. And a brave attempt to put some flesh on the bones of the eight small Premonstratensian houses in Ireland again founders on a lack of information. There are apparently no surviving cartularies and no remnants of their libraries. At times even the names of founders are lost. Hence it is the more surprising that the author pays little attention to the testimony of the surviving buildings beyond providing some tantalisingly remarkable photographs.

Other authors are more prepared to address the canons on their own terms and to attempt in different ways actually to penetrate into various aspects of their manner of life. The academic and cultural activities of the Augustinians in Northumbria are uncovered in rewarding fashion with a revealing emphasis on their relations with other orders. A fine study by Nicholas Orme of the educational role of the Augustinian canons is informative in detail but does not shirk the conclusion that their arrangements followed the earlier example of the Benedictines and were scarcely distinctive in any way. In rather similar vein an impressively learned account of the interest shown in history and literature by the later medieval Augustinians accumulates much illustrative detail but stresses how individualised and idiosyncratic such activity was, and how limited was its wider influence. But what is striking is the lack of analysis devoted to the very raison d’être of the canons, that is, their spiritual life. Indeed one contributor comes close to praising the canons for their mediocrity, pointing out that they did not seek greatness, that they did not write much nor did they show much interest in the cure of souls. The spiritual life emerges on only two occasions, and then only briefly. A detailed prosopographical study of the careers of the obedientiaries of Thornton ends by briefly reminding us as an afterthought that ‘many or perhaps even most’ of those entering a religious house sought ‘a spiritual life’. And a promising study of the chapter office of the Gilbertine order dissolves into source criticism. It is entirely characteristic that the most profound spiritual writer, and also amongst the most widely read, amongst the later medieval English canons, Walter Hilton of Thurgarton, receives only one passing reference – only to be dismissed because the subsequent circulation of his writings seems to have fallen largely outside his order. The distinctive origins of his spirituality are passed over.

Of course the houses of canons had many personalities, social, economic, cultural, even political. All merit examination. But their cartularies, whose importance is emphasised by so many of these studies, testify again and again to the fundamental fact that they were founded and subsequently endowed by countless benefactors ‘pro salute anime mee et antecessorum meorum’. It seems perplexing, at the least, that some five hundred pages devoted to their study essentially ignore this aspect of their existence. But we are here brought up against the paradox of the ‘new’ monastic history, a monastic history for a secular age. And this marriage is as yet an uneasy one. So we have the history of religious houses with the religion left out. Truly, Hamlet without the Prince of Denmark. And, as this volume well demonstrates, this history has a number of distinguishing features. Its origin is often to demean the work of David Knowles – as occurs half-a-dozen times in this volume – because he was concerned with observance, and hence critical of non-observance. His insistence on judgement is here discarded, as also is his literary grace. Visitation records share the same disrepute because they tend ‘to highlight wrongdoing’. Instead we are enjoined not to look for greatness ‘from a religious order which never set out to attain such eminence’. There is also a focus on smaller houses, largely because the greater have often been fully studied. But it is often impossible to penetrate the inner lives of such institutions; the result is that questions of observance have to be bypassed and attention is directed towards such mundane material as cartularies and patronage that can illuminate only the external relations of these communities. In general the contributors to this volume also tend to see the canons as agents of novelty – agents of movements outside themselves. These may be the patronage of Henry i's new breed of courtiers, the rise of a knightly class, ‘the role of the knightly woman in transmitting … social, tenurial and religious connections’ or of a new devotion. Yet, despite such seductions, at times the canons reveal much older loyalties. It may be the attachment of the canons of St Gregory's, Canterbury, to the body of the former royal saint, St Mildred. Or it may be the retention of ancient, pre-Conquest cults by the Augustinians of the midlands. The newly-founded houses of canons in north Wales all had their origins in ancient religious foundations. The only Augustinian abbey in Wales, at Bardsey, was the former burial place of St Dyfrig along with the traditional 20,000 saints laid to rest on the island. Devotions here are not mere syncretism but deep and numinous, too much so for the calculators of modern times.