The penitential literature of early medieval Europe has often been viewed by scholars as a cold, forbidding genre, far removed from genuine pastoral concern. In this excellent survey, Rob Meens argues that to caricature penitentials in this way, as moving away from a system of public penance in late antiquity and effectively replacing it with a new emphasis on the interiority of penance in the twelfth century, is quite incorrect. Although his title might suggest that this survey begins only in the time of Gregory the Great, Meens offers much valuable commentary on the continuity of emphasis in these penitentials with the practice of penance in late antiquity, when it was clearly a public process, with penitents occupying a distinct place within a church, until their penance was done. Questioning too neat an antithesis between public and private penance, Meens argues that both strands continued to operate in the early medieval period. None the less, he does recognise that the penitentials which first seem to emerge in an ascetic milieu in Britain and Ireland in the sixth century (one of the earliest being attributed to Gildas) suggest that the locus of authority in the enforcement of ecclesiastical discipline was shifting from bishops to monastic leaders. While monasticism clearly fostered more personal forms of penance, he observes that the public aspect of penance never disappeared in the early medieval period. He argues that the imposition of penance could also operate as a form of conflict resolution between aggrieved parties, and that the penances imposed were frequently different for different groups in society. In the Carolingian period there was certainly concern about the variety of penances that had developed over previous centuries, as bishops sought to reassert control over penitential literature. While Meens does not explicitly invoke the category of canon law, his discussion of penitentials effectively fits into an account of how different ecclesiastical authorities sought to impose discipline within the community under their charge. By the sixth and seventh centuries Irish monks were at the forefront of developing this process, setting precedents that would be taken over by episcopal authorities in the eighth and ninth centuries in particular. Meens also rightly criticises assumptions that this literature gave way in the twelfth century to a new emphasis on interiority, often associated with the figure of Peter Abelard. In fact, priests always needed penitentials to offer guidance on the penances that they needed to impose. Meens is aware that prescriptive literature cannot tell us what penances were actually imposed. He is vividly aware, however, of the insights that such texts can provide about social practices in early medieval society, many of which hint at the survival of many pagan traditions. While he does not consider the doctrinal issue of how confession became considered a sacrament in the twelfth century, he enables us to consider how theorists in that period helped to transform disciplinary practice into what was, at least in theory, meant to be an experience of grace.