The Celestines were a Benedictine reform order whose success in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries challenges the traditional historiographical narrative of late medieval monastic decline. Despite their success, the Celestines have been victim of “a grave injustice” (14), as scholarship has hitherto paid little attention to them. Until recently, scholars interested in Celestine history had only one comprehensive study to turn to, namely Karl Borchard's Die Cölestiner: Eine Mönchsgemeinschaft des späten Mittelalters (Husum, 2006). Robert L. J. Shaw's The Celestine Monks of France complements Borchard's institutional focus by concentrating on the French Celestines seeking “to explore how late medieval monastic reform both drew from and shaped its sociocultural landscape” (20).

Founded in 1263 by Celestine V, when the latter was still the hermit Pietro da Morrone (c. 1215–1294), the Celestines grew to comprise about 100 houses in Italy by 1400. In 1300, the French king Philip the Fair introduced the congregation to France. The French branch never reached numbers comparable to those in Italy. However, in spite of the hostile conditions brought about by the Hundred Years’ War and endemic plague epidemies, there were twenty-one Celestine houses in France by 1450, each of which was home to up to forty monks (16–17). Contrary to their Italian brethren, who always maintained close to their eremitical roots, the Celestines in France sought urban environments. Their biggest houses were in Paris, Lyon, Avignon, Metz, and Amiens, where they kept close ties to French (and Lancasterian) nobility and royalty. Despite these privileged connections, the Celestines became one of the most prominent groups in late medieval France to identify and label themselves as observant.

Shaw's study is divided into two parts. Part 1, entitled “The French Celestines in their World,” focuses on the internal developments and evolution of the congregation. Chapter 1 engages with the vita of Jean Bassand (c. 1360–1445) which exemplifies the aspects of Celestine ideology at the height of their influence in France. Chapter 2 focuses on the development of their constitutions. Shaw places “the constitutional development of the Celestine order [which] was heavily influenced by an underlying ideology in which exacting, scrupulous practice and the veneration of law as a path of reformist perfection were seen as key to the spiritual progress of the communities” (115) in a conversation with the intellectual and cultural history of late medieval France. Chapter 3 explores the French Celestines’ sociocultural context. As—unlike their Italian brothers—French Celestine life tended to be urban, this came with its own sets of challenges, especially in regard to maintaining an ascetic and a world-withdrawn lifestyle. The Celestines of Metz and other cities answered their “well-connected and urban reality” (120) with an emphasis on discipline and regular observance in the form of additional and detailed stipulations; for example, regarding door security, they aimed to prevent any undue contact between members and the outside world.

Part 2, entitled “The World of the French Celestines,” is concerned with the wider economic and cultural environment in which the Celestines existed and acted. The two chapters that make up this second part are particularly interesting for readers with a broader interest in late medieval monasticism. Chapter 4 engages with the reality of the high financial costs of maintaining houses in urban centers, especially in Paris, which, much like today, was “generally more expensive than other towns of the realm” (195). As was the case of many other urban congregations of that period, a significant part of the Celestines’ income came from a spiritual economy, that is from prayers for the dead in exchange for money. Shaw's discussion of the tensions arising from the Celestines’ high moral standards on the one hand, and the need to ensure sustenance, on the other—tensions which culminated in their ambiguous attitudes toward foundation Masses and the question as to whether the such Masses were inherently simoniac in nature—is fascinating and an important contribution to this generally understudied aspect of late medieval monasticism. The fifth, and final, chapter then engages with the cultural legacy of the Celestines and, more specifically, inquires about the extent to which the French monks were able to provide answers to the pressing questions of their time (the Great Western Schism, notably) and influence thinkers beyond their own order.

Shaw's The Celestine Monks of France, c.1350–1450 is a very valuable study in several regards. First and foremost, it is an important contribution to fill the historiographical gap regarding Celestine history in general and its French branch in particular. Moreover, the monograph contributes to the slowly growing scholarship on late medieval monasticism, which is gradually debunking the traditional historiographical narrative of a monastic decline that allegedly preceded (and then facilitated) the Reformation. As studies by Kaspar Elm, Sigrid Hirbodian, Gabriela Signori, and their students have shown for the empire, matters were significantly more complicated than the narrative has suggested. Finally, Shaw's contribution for late medieval French monasticism is particularly important, as he reintroduces religion into monastic history, which, in French historiography, often only takes a second place behind politics. The only major point of criticism concerns the absence of a bibliography—which would have been important for future studies in the field that, inevitably, will build on Shaw's otherwise excellent monograph.