Written to celebrate the (suggested) 800th anniversary of the foundation of the Croisiers in 2010, Michael Hayden's book is a history of this group of religious men from their disputed origins to the present day. The Crutched Friars, or Croisiers, or Canons Regular of the Order of the Holy Cross, have generated interest among scholars across the globe for some time, not least perhaps on account of their continuity: communities of this order still exist in places as far afield as the United States, Belgium, Indonesia, Brazil and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Hayden's study focuses on the Croisiers in medieval England and France, looking in some detail at the internal life of this religious group, their contributions to the intellectual and spiritual life of their times, and describing individual foundations of the order in England and France and their histories. The author evidently feels very close affinity with the topic on which he has written. Throughout this book, but especially in the opening chapter, he emerges as a staunch defender of what he considers to be the correct account of the history of the origins of the Croisiers: thus he argues for the acceptance as accurate of the earliest-dated of the versions of their appearance suggested by historians. Summaries of these different versions, which suggest foundation dates ranging from 1210 to the 1240s, as well as speculations on the key influences on the order during its early days, are given in the section on ‘the origin and early years of the Order’, which looks at some length at what Hayden clearly considers to be central for our understanding of Croisier history. Speculation on ‘what might have been’ if the order had not fallen victim to Henry viii's suppression of the religious communities in England leads the author to imagine a fanciful alternative version of history in which the English Croisiers would have ‘maintained their popularity because of the services they provided to the people’, they ‘would have been able to pay [their] debts’ with the help of continuing donations, and they ‘would have been able to overcome internal problems’ to flourish ‘for at least another century’. And while he admits that there is a lack of clearly datable documentation he does not let this deter him in his defence of a religious order that is clearly close to his heart. Some of Hayden's argument is contentious and not all readers will be convinced by his version of the history of the Crutched Friars, but it cannot be denied that he has brought together a wealth of important material relating to the Croisiers, past and present.