Were the complex world of medieval Christian iconography somehow reduced to a single sign, surely it would be the cross. Representing Christ's crucifixion, and thus the ultimate narrative of sacrifice and redemption upon which Christianity was founded, crosses are both commonplace and yet exceptional throughout medieval Europe, occupying a consistently privileged position but ever-changing in their artistic and theological nuances. As is amply demonstrated in the contributions to The Rood in Medieval Britain and Ireland, c. 800–c. 1500, edited by Philippa Turner and Jane Hawkes, the topic continues to offer major avenues for fresh research. In the specific sphere of the British Isles and its close networks, which is the purview of the book, researchers are faced with not only a body of evidence that has a rich textual history and weighty modern historiography but also a notably fragmented physical record that suffered staggering losses during the Dissolution of the Monasteries and across the early modern era more generally. Thus, new approaches to this material are particularly welcome, and it is to be hoped that the discourse reflected in the volume continues developing in the years ahead.

The book opens with an essay by Turner, who lays out the central themes of the volume and introduces the chapters that follow (1–13). The chapters proceed in roughly chronological order, with four authors focused on the early period up to c. 1200 and five on the later Middle Ages. The emphasis is largely art-historical, but evidence is drawn from a range of sources, both visual and textual. Sculpted high crosses are represented across the chronological as well as geographical scope of the book, with discussions of key examples in early England by Hawkes (15–30), Romanesque Ireland by Maggie M. Williams (59–79), and late medieval Galicia by Sara Carreño (81–102). Welcome attention is paid to the physical context of the rood in these essays, which consider landscapes and cultural contexts around the high crosses, and in two chapters on late medieval church interiors, by Lucy J. Wrapson on the surviving evidence of polychrome rood screens (145–59) and Sarah Cassell on East Anglian angel roofs (161–84). In the remaining chapters the authors engage primarily with written traditions that further inform the meaning, use, and function of the medieval cross, including contributions by Kate Thomas on the thaumaturgical properties of roods in medicinal texts (31–44), John Munns on the intriguing iconographies reflected in twelfth-century dream visions (45–57), Turner on the Black Rood of Scotland that once linked the space of Durham Cathedral to military conflicts (103–23), and Małgorzata Krasnodębska-D'Aughton on architectural sculpture and theology in Franciscan Irish contexts (125–44). The volume is well illustrated throughout, with clear black-and-white illustrations across the essays and a rich selection of color plates in the inset.

Taken together, contributions of The Rood in Medieval Britain and Ireland shed considerable light on the centrality of the cross in medieval visual and devotional culture, focusing on the distinct cultural zone of the British Isles but framed with major comparison drawn from the European mainland. Emerging from a conference held in York in 2016 (9), it reflects both the laudable enthusiasm for novel approaches and the somewhat rushed quality that often marks such publications, with authors exploring very exciting material but often also working through complex, fragmentary, and sometimes contradictory evidence. For example, Carreño devotes more space to background information on high crosses than descriptions of the Galician crosses that are the heart of the discussion; Krasnodębska-D'Aughton likewise prioritizes a summary of Franciscan theology over a more detailed account of the patronage, building history, and topography of the Irish churches where her main examples of architectural sculpture are to be found. In each case, the impulse to fully contextualize their new findings is understandable, but much of that background material is published elsewhere, and judicious pruning would have allocated more space to the relatively neglected medieval sculptures at the core of their respective projects. Others conversely do an admirable job of describing individual monuments but needed more attention to the proverbial big picture. This includes Hawkes, who considers potential Roman sources for early English crosses but largely sets aside significant post-Carolingian parallels in northern Europe, and Turner, whose compelling consideration of surviving sources for the Black Rood of Scotland would have been strengthened by further probing of the moment in which they were recorded, which is to say shortly after the Dissolution and the loss of the monument itself. Cassell likewise gives a stimulating introduction to the topic of angel roofs, but the reader is left wishing some better-preserved examples had been discussed in more detail: of particular note is a striking angel holding a book with seven seals at St. Peter Hungate (Norwich, Norfolk, 1440s; fig. 10.5B, 179) that deserves to be more fully elucidated with closer examination. Similarly, the arguments made by Williams concerning the Tuam Cross could have been greatly enriched with more details regarding its current condition and past conservation history. Given that the monument is actually a composite with mismatched shaft and cross head (65), and yet the connection between the cross and royal patronage hinges on the inscription from the plinth below the base of the shaft and the crowned head of Christ on the cross head working in tandem, greater attention to the links between these two components would have been warranted. Others balance the particular details of their materials and the greater contexts surrounding them with admirable clarity; chief among these are fascinating analyses of medicinal texts and visionary accounts by Thomas and Munns, respectively, and Wrapson's discussion of patterns of polychromy on rood screens, which she connects to patronage with wonderful clarity. Although their methods are strikingly different, each author gleans a real sense of the varying audiences of the medieval rood from the sources, especially those who used them, dreamed of them, paid for them, and ultimately made them. And although the volume is uneven in many regards, it represents a valuable contribution to a topic of central importance across medieval studies, with a wide array of discussions that will surely be of great consequence for a long time to come.