This mammoth volume is an impressive tribute from a number of points of view. There are thirty-five contributors, for example, including more than a few of the former students of the honorand, Joseph Goering. Moreover, this collection of essays bears witness to the gratitude and devotion to a mentor and colleague, who has taught many of them and has been an inspiration to all of them to persevere in their own research and writing. In so doing, as the introductory tribute affirms, the beneficiaries of Goering's guidance and example are already giving rise to a new generation of medieval scholars who are continuing to question and explore the medieval records and to acquire further insights and understanding.

In his tribute John Van Engen has described Goering as the true heir to Leonard Boyle and his project of identifying ‘pastoralia as a central feature of the literary, intellectual, cultural, and religious landscape of the High Middle Ages’. His teaching, like that of Boyle, he goes on to say, was grounded in the ‘connections between university teaching and parish-level practice’.

Both respect and affection are much in evidence in these pages, and these have found expression in the felicitous choice of title which, from one point of view, can be seen as skilfully linking the education received by the future clergy in the schools and nascent universities with its practical application at the parish level, where relationship with the laity was meant to be governed by love. On a more personal level the editors themselves describe the essays as reflecting the charism in their mentor's teaching and his invitation to them to continue their progress along the path of learning that leads to love.

The contributions have been divided into three sections based on the chief areas of Goering's scholarly studies, all of which, taken together, illustrate the breadth and depth of his scholarship; these are ‘medieval masters, schools and learning’, ‘pastors, judges and administrators’ and ‘liturgy, piety and exempla’.

In the first group of essays, among the masters whose works are discussed are Anselm of Laon (Alexander André), Peter the Chanter (Lindsay Bryan), Robert Grosseteste (Martin Pickavé), Ralph Hegham (Cecilia Panti) and William of Saint-Amour (Andrew Traver). In addition, new insights are revealed in the examination of distinction collections (Tuija Ainonen); attention is drawn to an unusual appearance of Gratian, the presumed author of the Concordantia discordantium canonum, in a fourteenth-century sermon here described as a lawyer's florilegium, which is put under scrutiny (Blake Beattie); and the textual construction of Thomas of Ireland's Manipulus florum is reexamined (Chris Nighman). Another contribution describes the Cistercian decision to introduce a programme of study within their cloisters in the late twelfth century, which led to the foundation of monastic studia in a university setting, such as Rewley Abbey in Oxford in the late thirteenth century (Franklin Harkins). One essay draws attention to the mnemonic techniques developed to assist fifteenth-century canon law students in the learning and recalling of the details of the texts studied (Stephan Dusil and Katherine Hill).

The second section includes several penetrating studies of different types of sermons, and their preachers, and one of these clarifies the importance of emphasising preaching on the Last Judgement as explained by William of Pagula in his handbook Oculus sacerdotis (Siegfried Wenzel). Other contributions examine penitence by means of a study of Paul of Hungary's Summa de penitentia (Mark Johnson), and penance through William of Auvergne's penitential treatises (Winston Black). There is also a touching personal appeal for repentance by Robert Grosseteste in a letter written to a priest friend who had fallen into evil ways (F. A. C. Mantello). In addition we are given a challenging demonstration of the influence of churchmen and scholars trained in canon law, which resulted in the insertion of ideas originating in the ius commune into many passages of Magna Carta (Jason Taliadoros). There is also a dramatic example of Pope Leo ix’s reform programme in action at the Council of Reims (sic) in 1049, when several prelates in attendance who tried to conceal their simoniacal practices found themselves struck dumb (John Ott).

Under the third group of contributions we learn of the discovery of musical notation in the form of neumes in copies of the canon law manuscript compiled by Burchard of Worms in the early eleventh century (Stephan Dusil and Katherine Hill); we are informed of the conflicting traditions behind St Kentigern's association with the city of Glasgow (Mairi Cowan); and we are provided with the complicated background to the legend surrounding Archbishop Thomas Becket's pet wolves (David Winter). In addition, two essays deal with penitential theology as illustrated in the writings of the fourteenth-century Spanish mystic, Raymond Llull (Pamela Drost Beattie), and in the radical preaching of penance on the part of John Wyclif (Sean Otto). The background to one contribution is Dante's Divine comedy, with the focus on the conflicting attractions that lurk in games of dice and gambling (Kristen Allen).

Many of the contributions include appendices containing passages from the Latin texts of the writings discussed, and a group of colour plates from Burchard of Worms's Decretum illustrates the positioning of the neumes above the lines intended for singing. There are also several black-and-white plates depicting passages taken from texts examined in other contributions.

A full list of Goering's publications is included in the volume, and there are two indices: an index of manuscripts cited together with their location, and an index of names, places and works.

The lengthy introduction by the editors is also to be commended for its explanatory details concerning their decision to impose a three-fold division on the contributions. Each of these is described at length, and the individual essays are outlined in order to demonstrate how they complement and sometimes challenge one another. As a contribution to this volume it also merits careful reading.