It is rare to find a six-volume Festschrift, but it is, I expect, even rarer to find a subject generally deemed to be entirely deserving of such an honour. These beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated volumes, honouring the work of James Hogg, make a fitting tribute to the man behind the Analecta Cartusiana and to his tireless research on the Carthusian order over a period of thirty-six years. The main contents comprise the proceedings of a five-day conference held in 2006 at two Austrian Charterhouses, Aggsbach in Lower Austria and Mauerbach near Vienna. Scholars in many disciplines and from many countries offered papers in a variety of languages – English, German, Italian, Spanish and French – touching on subjects as diverse as the architectural history of an individual Charterhouse, specific libraries and library catalogues, gardens, documents concerning lands or jurisdictions, the fate of various houses over time, aspects of their spirituality, and so forth. In acknowledging his or her debt to James Hogg, each author invariably refers to the immense contribution that he has made to our knowledge of Carthusian history, life and culture, to his encouragement of and generosity to those working in the field, and, through his tireless work as a publisher, to sharing of information.

Nor have James Hogg's endeavours remained confined exclusively to the Carthusian sphere, as John Clark points out in volume i when he thanks Hogg for so generously including texts and studies of Fr Augustine Baker osb as an adjunct to the subseries on The cloud of unknowing, the fourteenth-century contemplative text now thought to have been written by a Carthusian and certainly reflecting Carthusian spirituality. In volume iv, Baker appears again in Ben Wekking's discussion of his recent editon of Baker's biography of Dame Gertrude More. Another Benedictine, the eleventh-century spiritual writer and abbot, John of Fécamp (c. 990–1078), introduced by Christian McTighe, is included (volume iii) since his views on the contemplative life are illuminating in a Carthusian context, particularly those concerning spiritual reading, where he seems to prefigure Guigo ii (d. 1188), the ninth prior of the Grande Chartreuse; for him too reading was an ‘exercise of the spiritual life’. Those of us who labour in the Bridgettine vineyard are also enormously indebted to Hogg; numerous documents and works associated with this order, and in particular its English house, Syon Abbey, have been edited or published by him.

Above all, however, it is the Carthusians, their contemplative life and spirituality, and their fine Charterhouses, to which these volumes are dedicated. Volume i, for example, contains numerous colour plates of Aggsbach and conferences held there over the years, and indeed further depictions of this beautiful monastery, then and now, appear throughout the Festschrift. In the same volume, Mija Oter Gorenčič provides an amply illustrated discussion of the architectural history of the Charterhouse of Seitz, the first Charterhouse to be founded outside France or Italy; now in Slovenia, when founded in the mid-twelfth century, it was in German-influenced Lower Styria. Margrit Früh's description of a seventeenth-century liturgical manuscript from the Swiss Charterhouse of Ittingen, a later foundation, is brought to life by the accompanying illustrations, especially those of its historiated initials. In volume ii, the changing iconography of St Bruno, the order's founder, as viewed over the centuries, is tellingly explored and illustrated by Juan Mayo Escudero, whose original Portuguese has been translated into French.

These, and the many thoughtful pieces throughout the six volumes, open the doors to one of the most austere and private of religious orders and provide evidence of just how enriching and fulfilling the contemplative life could be. Recognition of Hogg's ‘éminents travaux’ in Carthusian studies is not confined to scholars, however, for on 28 August 2006, in the church of the Charterhouse of Aggsbach, he was inducted as a ‘Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur’ on behalf of the president of France for his diligence in making widely known in over 300 publications ‘les richesses intellectuelles, artistiques et spirituelles’ of the order founded by St Bruno and represented by some of the most beautiful ‘édifices religieux du patrimonie architectural français’. More intimately, poems by ‘A Carthusian’ in James Hogg's honour are a touching tribute by someone with first-hand experience of the world that he once inhabited and to which he has subsequently contributed so much.