The aim of Kathleen Kennedy's book is to survey the ‘border art’ in extant Wycliffite Bibles (the earliest in English) of which over 250, full or partial, survive from the period c. 1390–c. 1490. It is her contention that despite the aniconic nature of this decoration which has tended to relegate these manuscripts in the eyes of art historians to an artistically minor status, they were embellished by artists of mainline importance, mostly localisable to the capital, with some activity in the provinces, although this is less clearly defined. Given the number of Bibles that survive from after Archbishop Thomas Arundel's prohibition of this Bible translation in 1409, she challenges the claims of illegality, asserting that it was the most popular Middle English book of the fifteenth century for people of all classes and professions, with few Vulgates copied in the period. She explodes the myth of iconomachy that surrounds the artistic production of Wycliffite Bibles, pointing out that the lack of figural decoration became the norm for Latin copies as well. Study of these Bibles, which are now spread throughout the world, has been enhanced by the significant move of many libraries to digitize their holdings. Kennedy is to be congratulated for seeking out this information and providing the reader with a useful list of extant copies which goes beyond Dove's volume (The first English Bible, Cambridge 2007) in detailing in all cases whether or not they have decoration and, if so, where illustrations of many of these images can be found, although she rightly concedes that in a study of book illumination first-hand observation of these manuscripts is essential wherever possible. Kennedy calculates that some 40 per cent of extant copies are decorated in pigments rather than pen alone.

Chapter i outlines and challenges certain rationalisations made by scholars in their attempt to explain the apparent paradox of the Wycliffite Bible's illicit popularity. Realising that she is writing for a mixed audience, in chapter ii Kennedy proceeds to define some codicological and art-historical terms. This chapter is helpful in focusing on some examples with which to introduce the layout of typical Wycliffite Bibles and their decorative apparatus, with a discussion of the hierarchy of such decoration, encompassing catchwords, penwork ornamentation, champ (foliage sprays in pigment) initials and borders in full pigments. However, then her discussion digresses to parallels with Statutes manuscripts in the vernacular but with insufficient focus on aspects of their decoration from the inception of the Bibles and their peak of production in the first quarter of the fifteenth century to make such a comparison wholly viable. Kennedy would probably be the first to acknowledge that this is a methodology as yet insufficiently studied in relation to Wycliffite Bibles. What is required is a comprehensive study of the various levels of decoration across all extant examples (penwork ornamentation still requires close study in relation to these books), considered in relation to the hierarchies in, for example, Books of Hours of the period whether in Latin or the vernacular. Such a survey might well offer valuable insights into aspects of workshop practice. Kennedy argues convincingly that fine ink flourishing may have been as, or even more, expensive than standard champs and this has interesting implications for patronage. In chapter iii Kennedy asserts that some copies of individual books of the Wycliffite Bible were produced speculatively and, to that extent, commercially. This is a claim for textual scholars to support or refute.

Despite the general codicological orientation in chapter ii, as the book unfolds (to a degree in chapter iv but especially in chapters v and vi) it is clear that this study is for the reader with specialist knowledge of the methods of analysis of the decoration of illuminated manuscripts. The uninitiated reader could soon become lost in a web of description and complex detail that can be difficult to follow and which is further exacerbated by insufficient reproductions. Few general readers will have the inclination to seek out the various digital reproductions and carry them in their head in order to validate or otherwise Kennedy's observations and interpretative analysis. Amongst some sound analysis of the various manuscripts and the artistic hands within, based on careful observation of the development of the border motifs, Kennedy's overall conclusions are undermined by over-emphasis upon the importance of the ‘Big Bible’ (British Library, ms Royal 1 E. IX) of c. 1405–15 in the early evolution of the decoration of Wycliffite Bibles. This ignores the importance of late fourteenth-century manuscript illumination where the ultimate sources of this style and approach to border decoration lie – even pre-dating the influential Carmelite Missal, the borders of which we can no longer assess on account of its nineteenth-century mutilation – as well as key manuscripts of the early fifteenth century such as the Princess Joan Psalter (BL, ms Royal 2 B. VIII) of c. 1405, and the Chichele Breviary (Lambeth Palace Library, ms 69) of 1408–14, both of which probably predate the ‘Big Bible’ in the introduction of theses avant-garde border elements. Undue emphasis is placed on individual ornamental forms at the expense of the all-important border structures, which ultimately originate not in London work of the early fifteenth century but in earlier Westminster and London productions of the 1370s and early 1380s, a style perpetuated into the 1390s. Three charters issued by Edward iii at Westminster in 1373 (now in the Bristol Records Office) and the Litlyngton Missal of 1383/4 (Westminster Abbey, ms 37) are crucial in defining this development, as are the Wycliffite Bible in two volumes, BL, ms Egerton 617/618, commissioned by Thomas of Woodstock, sometime before 1397, and the Wycliffite Bible, now in the Herzog-August Bibliothethek, Wolfenbüttel, Guelf. Aug. A. 2, datable to the late 1390s. Despite its importance, the Wolfenbüttel Bible has received only a brief mention and the location of production of the Egerton Bible has been misinterpreted, its having no connection as Kennedy asserts with the group of manuscripts documented as carried out under the leadership of John de Tye at the Bohun's castle at Pleshey, Essex, but a London product made after the demise of this earlier in-house workshop which occurred in the mid-1380s. Furthermore, recognition of precisely the same border motifs from one manuscript to another is not a guaranteed presence of the same artist as is often implied in chapters v and vi (it is rather methods of technical execution and idiosyncratic features that are crucial in identifying the hand of an individual), nor is it possible to speak of a ‘Scheerre team’, a term which implies a group of artists working under his direction for which no certain evidence exists. Likewise, although the bibliography concerning fifteenth-century material is comprehensive, insufficient attention has been given to published works which would have offered a clearer understanding of late fourteenth-century developments crucial to the formation of Wycliffite Bible decoration. Kennedy rightly concedes that the only means of dating these poorly documented volumes is by their style and manner of execution although for the most part no closer dating than the first or second quarter of the fifteenth century, as detailed in the captions, is postulated within the chronology which she proposes.

The final chapter constitutes an interesting coverage of the reuse of the Wycliffite Bible text in Books of Hours in English, the majority datable to the closing years of the fourteenth century, and the addition in the later fifteenth century of devotional images, not related to the text, but in which Kennedy makes the novel suggestion that the English translation of the Bible was used as a vehicle for this devotion, by royal patrons as well as those of the minor gentry.

Despite the criticisms levelled in this review Kennedy has gone beyond merely producing the first guidebook to Wycliffite Bibles and their digitized surrogates: she makes an important contribution to the field of manuscript studies by contextualising the decoration in this large body of material hitherto greatly neglected by art historians.