After too long neglect in Anglophone historiography, there is new interest in indulgences. R. N. Swanson offers a convincing and richly-documented account of their prominence in the religious and economic fabric. His terminal date extends beyond legal abrogation to allow reflection on the ‘transitional phase’. The latter review is a sensitive and judicious contribution to research on the process of religious change. Starting at c. 1300 is, as the author acknowledges, more problematical. So determined, however, the study concentrates on the period of most abundant sources, particularly administrative but including notably also the vernacular literary.

The technical formulation underlying the term ‘indulgence’ is ‘relaxation of enjoined penance’. Indulgences stem from an age when penance was, in theory, fixed by tariff. Swanson describes the development of doctrine from the twelfth to thirteenth centuries, with its increasing emphasis on mental state and the social implications of sinning. He suggests how purgatory's emergence over approximately the same period complemented the shift from an earlier model where satisfaction preceded readmission to ordinary Christian intercourse to one where satisfaction was in varying degree postponed.

Swanson's study is clearly structured and effectively focused. Such demurral as it provokes is on the analysis of theory. Though judgements will differ as to what constitutes coherent theology, the perception that Thomas Aquinas's appeal essentially to the Church's indefectibility as the ultimate guarantee of validity is ‘to grasp at straws’ (p. 15) surely here underrates the contemporary cogency of that seminal idea, whose potential and specific utility – addressed too by Shaffern – Swanson traces through recurring medieval discussion. Indefectibility, extrapolated from Matthew xvi. 18–19, underpinned a jurisdictional competence within which general organisational development reinforced the papacy's massively augmented role. Thus, as the penultimate chapter shows clearly, when the sixteenth-century Reformation tackled indulgences it was fundamentally in confrontation with the larger ecclesiological premiss. On a more particular level, the treatment of England's major late medieval canonist, William Lyndwood, raises interpretative points. While it is the case that Lyndwood, discussing fictitious indulgences, mentions ‘debate over the possibility that they were in fact made effective by faith’ (p. 19), he proximately follows with a concatenation of citations to the contrary, so that his discussion moves directly to refunds. Not, primarily, ‘the fate of funds recovered from false questors’ (p. 321), a posing that sits uneasily with Swanson's expansion, but whether those duped could legally recover. Lyndwood's thought must often be teased from his elliptical glossing technique but its present tenor seems unequivocal. What is aptly termed Lyndwood's ‘tractarian analysis’ (p. 319) does not start by ‘bluntly refusing to consider who could grant indulgences’. It notes, rather, that the text glossed (Pecham's ‘Altissimus’), recalling indulgences ‘granted by multiple bishops’ to those genuflecting at the elevation of the host, has not specified the grants – a defect on which Lyndwood is otherwise silent, while alive to an inherent difficulty: would the grantors have been satisfied by the remote participation of those benefiting from Pecham's provision that bells be rung at the elevation? (The question has interest in terms of Swanson's examination of the potentially amplifying consequences of ratification.) Though Lyndwood is willing to interpret genuflection metaphorically – possibly an implicit concession to disability – he insists that whatever was required for the grant must be performed. This rigour lends edge to his observation that ‘by whom such indulgences have been granted is here not expressed’. Regarding the reach of indulgences to souls already in purgatory, that Lyndwood dispenses altogether with contrary opinions and that he raises the subject under a vox which certainly did not compel its treatment bespeak an engagement inviting emphasis.

The account of praxis rests on indefatigable archival research which will not surprise readers of Swanson's other works. Its range is justly signalled by the heading ‘Nooks, crannies, needles, haystacks’. Beyond indulgences, the study illuminates topics as diverse as medieval consumerism, penetration of the money economy, confraternity and gild organisation, confession and wider spirituality, episcopal administration and byways of diplomatic (with valuable illustrations – though reductions unspecified), mechanisms and hazards of dealing with the papal curia, the artistic and architectural dimension, fund-raising for public works, the impact of printing. The key insight deriving is ‘the mutuality at the heart of medieval catholicism’. Historians are here well redirected to it and will long draw gratefully on the treasury of illustrative detail so accumulated.

Robert W. Shaffern ranges from 1175 (capturing the early schools) to the eve of the Great Schism, with background coverage of the preceding period. The continental focus integrates usefully with Swanson's subject. Shaffern's assembly of contributions to the debate from canonists and theologians constitutes serviceable research. There are however presentational lapses in that, variously, some textual notes contain unintelligibilities and translations inaccuracies. Hostiensis's ‘cum secundum [P]rosperum [s]it in omnibus fidelibus operosa’ (cf. p. 177 n. 77, where variant), does not mean ‘since fortunately, works may be offered on behalf of all the faithful’, but ‘since according to Prosper [sc. Decretum Gratiani, C 33. q. 3 de pen. dist. 2 c. 5; Friedberg, 1191] it [charity] is operative in all the faithful’. For the interpretative ‘just so a prelate offers to the living the merits and payments of the saints, whilst that for which it is offered to the living it [sic] is yet given to the dead’ (p. 168) the Latin renders, in economical address to the issue, ‘so a prelate [can communicate] the merits of the saints and their superabundances, provided that that for which grant is made to the dead be performed by the living’. Does the 1479 edition of Augustinus Triumphus really read (Shaffern, p. 177 n. 83): ‘Unum est emenale absolutum quo quis meritur … Alius est meritum conditionale quo quis meretur pene etiam missionem’? Rome 1584 offers, with proper sense: ‘Unum est essentiale absolutum quo quis meretur … Aliud est meritum conditionale quo quis meretur poenae remissionem’. Control is impeded by the notes' chapter-end location; credit to CUP for retaining footnotes. Direction to Jean Dunbabin's account of Pierre de la Palud would have been worthwhile, an omission in a bibliographical orientation generally workmanlike.