This lush two-volume work will be a standard reference tool for research on the eucharist for many years to come. Sixty-two colour plates and nearly two hundred illustrations offer a rare collection of eucharistic art spanning over fifteen hundred years. Just as valuable is the twenty-page glossary of liturgical, artistic and theological terms connected with the eucharist in both eastern and western Christianity as well as useful indices and an extremely full bibliography.

Thirty-nine essays stemming from series of seminars held at the Institut catholique between 1997 and 2004 take up the bulk of the nearly 1,300 pages of text. The volumes are divided by topics. The first volume includes studies of representations and implementations of the institution of the eucharist; the second volume treats both personal and cultural receptions of the eucharist. Bériou make clear in her introduction that the collection is not meant to be either an encyclopedia or a work of synthesis but an introduction to the richness of the role of the eucharist in several cultures and periods (p. 42). The work is, if you like, more a rich buffet than a prix fixe.

It would be impossible to do justice to all the essays included, so a brief overview of the topics covered will have to suffice. Volume i contains twenty-one essays as well as a lengthy introduction. Yolanda Zalucka, François Bœspflug and Antonio Fernandez introduce the images of the eucharist in the bible moralisée of the thirteenth century. Vincent Dérouche and Dominique Iogna-Prat offer discussions, respectively, on the sacred space of the eucharist in the east and the west. Catherine Jolivet-Lévy investigates images of eucharistic practice in Byzantine monuments while Dominique Rigaux thoroughly analyses the images of the Chapel of the Miracle Corporal in Orvieto. The use of wine unmixed with water by the Armenian Church is the focus of the paper by Nina Garsoian while Marie-Odile Boulnois connects Origen's theology with the iconoclast controversy. Marie-Hélène Congourdeau's contribution addresses hyperrealism in Byzantine representations. The vessels used in the eucharist are the focus of the work of Brigitte Pitarakis (by the eastern Church) and of Élisabeth Taburet-Delahaye (by the western Church). Alain Le Boulleuc summarises the requirements for reception suggested by Origen while, in a very thorough and intriguing essay, Béatrice Caseau, looks at the norms and gestures of eucharistic reception in antiquity and the Middle Ages. Focusing on two particular groups, André Binggeli studies the eucharist as practised by the stylites and Michel Lauwers traces the gradual exclusion of women from the altar in the west. The lights that were used to honour the eucharist in western Churches are discussed by Catherine Vincent just as the processions and games that accompanied Corpus Christi are analysed by Noël Coulet. A return to early Christianity occurs in Nicole Belayche's essay on pagan and Christian polemics on the eucharist. Ralph Mathisen moves to the fifth and sixth century in his study of excommunication in Gaul. Excommunication remains the focus of Michel Parisse's analysis of diplomatic texts and Véronique Beaulande discusses the particular case of the excommunicated priest, Jean Baudier. Sandwiched in with these essays of exclusion is an investigation of the prayers of praise included in western liturgies by Paul de Clerck.

Volume ii provides a similarly rich offering of a further eighteen essays. Jean-Michel Spieser opens by questioning whether early Christian art contain eucharistic imagery at all. The focus then turns to central Europe in Bernadette Martin-Hisard's study of the eucharist in the Georgian Church in the Middle Ages and Marie-Madeleine De Cevins's analysis of the Hungarian Church during the same period. Returning to the early Church, Michel-Yves Perrin listens to silence in Christian antiquity while Georgia Frank offers a taste of the sensual imagery in John Chrysostom's writing on the eucharist. Ioanna Rapti uncovers illuminations of the eucharistic rite found in Armenian texts while Gunilla Iversen reports on the liturgical poetry that embellished the celebration of the eucharist in the western Middle Ages. Gilbert Dahan then offers a short reflection on scriptural commentaries on Matthew xxvi. 26–9 from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In what this reader found to be one of the most insightful essays, Nicole Bériou contributes a lengthy study of the eucharist in medieval preaching from the thirteenth through the fifteenth centuries. Marie Anne Polo de Beaulieu includes a useful translation of a large section of the La scala coeli of the fourteenth-century priest, John Gobi the Younger, placing it in its historical setting. The famous ‘Mass of St Gregory’ receives a masterful treatment by Dominique Rigaux in an important contribution. The demonic and the eucharist are represented in two essays. Florence Chave-Mahir relates three exorcisms attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux and Franck Mercier presents a fascinating analysis of illuminations that suggest a parody of the eucharist in the worship of Satan. Eliana Magnani uses anthropological methodology to compare the offering of gifts to the Church with the offering of the eucharist while Pierre Mariaux sees in the miracle of the Gero cross a connection to the eucharistic change. In a somewhat daring contribution, Anita Guerreau takes on the connections between the eucharist and the Grail, a contentious issue among literary scholars. Piroska Nagy traces the development of the practice of crying during the celebration or reception of the eucharist in the western Middle Ages while François Bœspflug closes the collection with a study of images of the Trinity with the eucharist.

In general, the essays represent the high quality of scholarship one would expect from such a distinguished team of editors. As with all such collections, however, some essays are more successful than others. Spieser may be perhaps too reluctant to attribute eucharistic overtones to early Christian art in his essay while Rapti may be too eager to find such symbolism in Georgian art. For a scholar of his calibre, Dahan uses surprisingly dated references in his short article on scriptural commentaries. Perrin's essay on silence seems to lack any clear focus while Mariaux's article on the Gero cross simply fails to convince. These are minor flaws in an otherwise extremely valuable collection. If much of this review has been spent presenting the content of the essays, it is in hopes that the individual essays reach the specialists to whom they are directed and not be lost in what might appear as an overwhelming opus. Anyone whose interest is the eucharist will still want to read both volumes carefully, however. They will not be disappointed and 1,200 pages will seem a very quick and enjoyable read.