In her introduction Susan Boynton identifies this collection of essays as a continuation of the influential surveys of biblical scholarship in the Middle Ages provided by Jean Leclerq, Beryl Smalley and Henri de Lubac. All three of these great studies are now over fifty years old and have not been superseded. As a stimulus to attract new students to the field, and an introduction to the different but complementary aspects of medieval biblical culture, this book is therefore timely and welcome.

What this collection adds to the earlier seminal works is the combination of codicological essays on important developments in Bible production with entries on monastic liturgy, exegesis, preaching and vernacular Bibles. The individual articles are erudite and well-conceived overviews for newcomers to the subject; all of the contributions offer wide-ranging discussions of their subject and give useful indications of the printed sources and translations available. The combination of articles is successful in that it presents a coherent and interesting discussion of the various ways in which the Bible was presented to its medieval audiences, whether in the Anglo-Saxon poetic retellings of biblical stories, the order of liturgical readings, or in the interpretative prologues and illuminations included in the Psalter.

Susan Boynton describes the sequence of psalm-singing and biblical readings in the weekly and annual round of liturgy respectively, and associates with this liturgical programme the customs surrounding liturgical drama. Richard Gyug writes on Beneventan Bibles from the early Middle Ages, especially calling attention to codices which include directions for liturgical reading or in which the order of biblical books follows the annual programme of readings. Isabelle Cochelin describes how biblical symbolism suffused every aspect of Benedictine monastic life, from the organisation of monastic buildings, to the key events in the life-cycle of a monk, and the annual celebrations in which monks imitated the actions of the Apostles. Jennifer A. Harris describes the competing influence of an Orosian and Augustinian account of the continuity between biblical and contemporary history. Two articles on biblical books as ‘symbols of reform’, by Diane J. Reilly and Lila Yawn, discuss the choice of illustration and the production of elaborate liturgical books during the high Middle Ages. Frans van Liere and Bert Roest summarise the main trends in biblical exegesis in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries respectively. An article from Eyal Poleg goes through the various ways in which preachers adapted Scripture in sermons, whether by reinterpreting the text for the purpose of moral admonition or drawing out the multiple meanings of a shortened reading. Laura Light's article is complementary to the previous two, on the development of the Paris Bible, and the thirteenth-century additions to the biblical text (in the form of capitulation, prologues and indices of Hebrew names). Stella Panayatova describes the significance of the Psalter in the life-cycle of lay people, and the range of exegetical and political messages that could be conveyed in its illustration. The final three articles in the volume, by Richard Marsden, Clive R. Sneddon and Emily C. Francomano, all outline the different kinds of vernacular translation produced in the Middle Ages in English, French and Castilian respectively.

Collectively, the articles expertly convey the changing ways in which biblical books and biblical readings contributed to medieval worship and studies. The order of articles takes us through the formation of the liturgy, the study of the literal sense of the Bible in the twelfth century and the rise of lay piety. This underlying narrative is also implicit in the three contributions on vernacular Bibles: Marsden's article opens with the early Anglo-Saxon interlinear translations in Psalters and poetic paraphrases of biblical stories. The French vernacular Bibles arose out of early university biblical scholarship, in the form of an anonymous thirteenth-century translation of the Bible along with the new Parisian prologues and glosses, and the Bible historiale, a translation of Peter Comestor's summary of biblical history. The Castilian vernacular Bibles first arose out of the movement to translate Hebrew and Arabic texts in Toledo, but were also linked to the political ambitions of Alphonso x and his desire to make Castilian a language of biblical and governmental authority.

The choice to centre the book on the material biblical text does lead to a particular understanding of the ‘practice of the Bible’. The collection includes an article on the biblical symbolism of Benedictine monastic life, since much of this is related to the liturgy. On the other hand, there is no discussion of Premonstratensian or mendicant attempts to resume the practices of the Apostles described in the New Testament, or Franciscan literalist imitation of Christ. John Baldwin (in Master, princes and merchants: the social views of Peter the Chanter and his circle), shows how engagement with the biblical text and the problematic moral questions that it posed directly affected the reforms of the Fourth Lateran Council, and Philippe Buc (in L'Ambiguïté du livre: prince, pouvoir, et peuple dans les commentaires de la bible au moyen âge) describes how applied political thought was influentially developed in the form of biblical commentary. Although the articles by Harris and Panayatova touch on the use of biblical models in crusader historiography and the introduction of political images into Psalters respectively, there is little extended discussion in this volume of how medieval religious orders, lay people or kings responded to the practical admonitions and examples in the Old and New Testaments, or applied them to their lives. Instead, the focus remains primarily on aspects of liturgy and personal devotion, and the production of biblical texts. As such, it offers a valuable and accessible starting-point for the study of the medieval Bible and of its reception.