That Marian doctrine and devotion in the West underwent major developments during the long twelfth century is well documented. The same period is also established as one of increasingly strident anti-Jewish attitudes amongst the Christian majority. Seeking the origin or early growth of key aspects of both of these developments has led plenty of scholars to Canterbury or Winchester, Worcester or Bury St Edmunds. Despite all this, Kati Ihnat manages to offer something genuinely new and insightful in her study of devotion to the Virgin Mary in Anglo-Norman England.

Indeed, one of the book's strengths is its developed awareness of both its historical and historiographical contexts. The title might give the impression that it is concerned only with the impact of the growing cult of Mary on the plight of the Jews; it is not. The greater part explores the particular contributions of the Anglo-Norman Church to the developing understanding and role of Mary within the life of the Church itself. It is only through this that Ihnat goes on to identify and explore the development's depressing double edge.

A key context that Ihnat establishes from the off is that of the cloister. Whilst she acknowledges others’ claims for the roles of devout lay women or the emerging Cistercian Order in increasing devotion to Mary, she convincingly argues that the key developments belong primarily within the Benedictine milieu. Ihnat's is not the first study to leave the impression that the rich spiritual heritage of the Anglo-Saxons combined with the energy of the post-Conquest reform spearheaded by the monks of Bec was an unusually potent mix, even in the context of the time. Nevertheless, she resists the temptation to over-claim. The number of developments that can be shown to originate or receive early nurture in Anglo-Norman England are more than sufficient to justify the book's focus; its authority is only strengthened by the author's ready recognition, where appropriate, of their patristic or Anglo-Saxon antecedents, or her awareness of complementary developments elsewhere.

Following a useful introduction, the book consists of four substantial chapters. Chapters i–iii are primarily concerned with the growth in the understanding of, and attitude to, the Virgin Mary within the Church, exploring developments in liturgy and devotional practice, in doctrinal understanding, and in hagiography, respectively. The focus throughout is on textual sources, but good use is also made of visual material, especially in chapter ii.

Chapter i traces the increasingly elevated language of Marian liturgies, the multiplication of Marian feasts, the development and dissemination of Marian offices, and the homiletic record. Chapter ii explores the radical reinterpretation of Mary's conception as immaculate by Eadmer of Canterbury in the course of his lobbying for the reintroduction of its feast, and the reassertion of the bodily nature of Mary's assumption by William of Malmesbury and Honorius Augustodunensis; doctrines corroborated in England by the emergence of new and unusual iconographies, including (following T. A. Heslop) that of her coronation. With her position as Queen of Heaven and ‘pillar of the Church’ fundamentally reinforced, Mary increasingly becomes the means par excellence to influence her son. The most perfectly faithful of God's creation, she also becomes something of a patron saint of the convert. As Mary's status is elevated and refined, ever-more elaborate hagiographical accounts emerge and miracle stories abound. These provide the focus for chapter iii.

Each of these chapters ends with a short analysis of the depiction of Jews in the materials explored, before moving to a short summarising conclusion. In chapter iv this question becomes central. Ihnat offers a close reading of eight of the Anglo-Norman Marian miracle stories in which Jewish characters play a key part. Taken together, they help to illustrate how, as Mary becomes more central in the scheme of salvation, her rejection increasingly becomes a byword for the rejection of her son. The denier of those doctrines elucidated in chapters i–iii is, as often as not, typified by the figure of the Jew.

Ihnat's conclusion, following chapter iv, is extremely well balanced and, as such, constitutes a major strength of study as a whole. The sources she explores were primarily intended not to demonise Jews but to glorify and increase the understanding of Mary. Jews were used in them, as elsewhere, as a convenient type of the unbeliever; a rhetorical model of how not to behave. With that relationship established, however, it became inevitable that ‘as Mary's star rose, so fell the Jew’ (p.188). Whether the Jewish characters in these sermons and stories were intended to represent real Jews or not matters little; the ‘slippery slope between rhetoric and reality’ ensured that it was not long before this ‘imagined antagonism between the Jews and Mary was having very real consequences’ (p.189).

There is little to criticise in this book. A single point of possible confusion arises in the section on Mary's conception in chapter ii, where the uncle and nephew Anselm of Canterbury and Anselm of Bury are referred to simply as ‘Anselm’ throughout. But that is a venial (and possibly editorial) sin. Mother of Mercy, bane of the Jews is a very fine work of scholarship that not only makes a substantial contribution to both the study of Mary and the history of anti-semitism, but also enriches our understanding of the Anglo-Norman Church more broadly. Just as importantly, it offers an eloquent reminder of the complexities of historical movements and motives, and the ever-present danger of the unintended consequence.