In her introduction to this excellent collection of essays Nicole Bériou reflects on an illuminated initial in a fourteenth-century choral book from the Dominican convent of Bologna. In it St Thomas Aquinas is depicted as preaching to an audience of lay people. This is not how most scholars think of Aquinas, whose life and work are considered primarily as enterprises devoted to theological consideration. Through this image Bériou introduces the volume's aim: to consider the challenge of preaching – a task which even dedicated scholars like Aquinas were called to perform – within the contexts offered by the ever-changing cycles of liturgical time. The volume is thus based on the solid foundation of ‘sermon studies’, yet it also introduced questions arising from the exciting field that might be called ‘the new history of liturgy’. The sixteen essays which follow adhere to the organising theme very closely, and expertly. The juxtaposition between preaching and liturgy directs the authors to consider the space and place of liturgical action, to consider preaching and liturgy similarly – and apart – as acts of communication, and to pay attention to the aspect of performance in liturgical preaching. The contributions range in subject matter from the fifth to the seventeenth centuries, thus spanning traditions the study of which is too often cut off at the end of the ‘Middle Ages’. A wide range of materials is examined by experts, like Jean-Claude Schmitt on exempla, and new connections are highlighted too: as between liturgy and religious drama (Ventrone), or preaching and the creation of new cults of saints (Ferzoco). More contributions of preaching materials from England, Scandinavia and central Europe would have been welcome, but to say so is not to detract from the vast interest of this volume. Anyone interested in medieval and early modern religious life will find in Prédication et liturgie a great deal that is new and challenging.