Boundaries between magic and religion are notoriously difficult to define, as much for medieval clergy as for modern scholars, and this book is to be praised for the clarity and care with which it examines medieval views of the proper categorisation of the magical, the acceptably Christian, the demonic and the natural. Omens, amulets, charms, fairies, ghosts, astral influences – could they be integrated into the scriptural and sacramental world of the Catholic clergy, and, if not, should they be condemned as diabolism or patronised as rustic superstition? Pastoral literature is one place to look for answers, and Catherine Rider has given a prominent place in her investigations to the preachers' manuals and guides to confession that throw light on what priests actually said to their flocks, and she has dug into the manuscripts and early printed books as well as the more accessible modern editions. She shows sensitivity to the different kinds of magic: the charms sung over sick children and animals, the (mainly literary) figure of the learned clerk invoking demons, the rabid political cases, like the charges raised against Eleanor, wife of Duke Humphrey of Gloucester, in 1441. And she has a humane awareness that much magic was inspired by a desire to achieve the uncontentious goods of everyday life, like health, wealth and fortune in love. When Abbot Thomas of Selby paid an enchanter ‘to search for the body of his dead brother, which had sunk in the water of the River Ouse’, he may have given his enemies (amongst whom his own monks featured prominently) a weapon to use against him, but his motives can be understood by anyone. Authors have an understandable tendency to stress or even exaggerate the importance of their topic, and one of the many strengths of this book, in contrast, is the level-headed way in which it shows that magic seems to have been neither a major source of anxiety for lay people nor a significant target of clerical criticism or repression. Even in the fifteenth century, when the witch-craze was taking off in continental Europe, the records of English church courts show that they heard only a couple of cases of magic each year. This is a clear, readable and well-researched study of a topic of great interest.