Madness, Medicine and Miracle in Twelfth-Century England argues that the vocabulary used in madness miracles was shaped by the rhetorical purposes of the miracle collections, as well as by sociocultural attitudes. Trenery does a fine job of situating her work in the context of current trends in the study of both hagiography and medieval madness. The methodology of employing case studies seeks to strike a middle ground between statistical analysis, which can flatten awareness of significant regional differences, and close readings of hagiographical texts, which risk neglecting social context. Notably, Trenery reads the miracle collections as influencing each other, participating in a supraregional textual community. There are important parallels here to the work of Steven Vanderputten and others linking local to supraregional developments in religious history, though these are not referenced.

Trenery chooses to use the medieval Latin vocabulary of madness unaltered. The question of how to evaluate medieval narratives of madness or mental illness is a fraught one, and this decision allows readers insight into her analysis. More discussion of the scholarship on the vocabulary for medieval medical conditions might be valuable. The slim size of the volume means that discursive notes are few, and the given bibliography is often lean. Particularly since the work engages with multiple subfields, this may leave some scholars desiring more citations or more commentary on those that are present.

Chapter 1, “Protection and Punishment in the Miracles of St. Edmund the Martyr at Bury,” is very strong on the regional context and political purposes of miracle collection. Trenery argues that revisions and variations in the collection are connected to rivalries between the monastery and the diocese of London (26–27, 46–47). Both in text and notes, Trenery's analysis of Latin is attentive and insightful. Throughout the collection, mental afflictions brought on by the saint are explained as punishments for those who are already behaving ‘insanely,’ in disruptive and sometimes violent ways. The madness of sin always precedes the madness imposed as punishment, undermining social and legal relationships.

In “Managing the Mad: Violence, Cruelty, and Restraint in the Miracles of William of Norwich,” Trenery makes the cogent argument that the representations of madness in The Life and Miracles of William of Norwich “can, in part, be attributed to the violent context in which it was written” (56). Notably, the violence in these narratives is not always perpetrated by the mad; they are the objects of violence as well, and their healing is also a release from social vulnerability. Trenery points out that the increase in pilgrim traffic in the late twelfth century would have posed new problems for those charged with accommodating the needs of people who could be a danger to themselves and others (57). As far as I am aware, this does not receive sustained attention in the work of other scholars of medieval madness. Trenery's interpretation of the mad is consistent with Guy Geltner's model of semi-integration for categories of persons like the leprous or prisoners in “Social Deviancy: A Medieval Approach” (in Why the Middle Ages Matter: Medieval Light on Modern Injustice, ed. Celia Chazelle, Simon Doubleday, Felice Lifshitz, and Amy G. Remensnyder [Routlege, 2011], 29–40).

The third chapter provides the book's most significant intervention in the historiography, using the Becket miracles to show the limitations of a medicalization model rather than its strengths. Trenery demonstrates that madness was understood as taking many forms and that multicausal explanations were common. As she argues, “demonic language” and “medical terminology” were “products of the same healing environment” (99). Her analysis suggests, moreover, that for those attempting to care for and heal the mad, some forms of insanity might be more familiar—and perceived as more common—than others. Healing is demonstrated by the renewed ability of the sufferers to take on their accustomed social and legal roles (95–96). The question of agency is also central here. Although evidence for the perception of madness by those afflicted is scarce (94), the restitution of their independence and wholeness in mind and body is generally celebrated (100).

Chapter 4 is concerned with the miracle stories within the Liber fundationis of St. Bartholomew in London. St. Bartholomew's institutional identity as a hospital and the possible impact of that identity on the miracle narratives is not much discussed, however. This may be for lack of evidence, but I would have appreciated more exploration of the possibility in view of the hospital's holistic functions as a place of spiritual and physical care, contra the historiographical narrative of medicalization which Trenery discusses. Madness could be a sign of holiness—as in the case of the hospital's founder, Rahere, who feigned madness—or sin. Casting out demons, moreover, is presented as parallel to the healing of the sick and the cleansing of lepers, performed by the saint through divine power. Here as elsewhere, Trenery highlights the agency of those suffering from demonic possession.

Chapter 5, on the miracles of St. Hugh of Lincoln, will be the most interesting chapter to those interested in theological teachings on health and the theological dimensions of madness miracles. Trenery argues that the theological significance of healing gained importance in the early thirteenth century, an age of anxiety about purgatory and heresy. Moreover, she suggests that with the standardization of criteria for and the process of canonization, the saint's healing action came to function as a necessary demonstration of sanctity. In restoring health, Hugh was also improving the spiritual ease of the community surrounding the afflicted. In all three of St. Hugh's vitae, the saint's work is connected to the health of soul, mind, and body.

The behavioral symptoms associated with madness could be ambiguous, though madness was recognized as a distinctive ailment. Despite there being very little direct evidence about the experience of madness, Trenery brings multiple source genres together to discuss perceptions and realities of that social experience. The list of terms and translations provided in the introduction may serve as a valuable tool, particularly for teachers and students. The volume should be of interest to scholars of hagiography, pilgrimage, religious life and institutions, and madness and mental illness.