The terms ‘Synagoga’ and ‘Ecclesia’, Synagogue and Church, of the title of this book refer to the artistic female personifications which were used in different medieval art forms to represent Judaism and Christianity. Nina Rowe has chosen to focus on the particular way in which these female personifications were sculpted in the 1220s and 1230s for the south façade of the cathedral of Reims, the Fürstenportal of the cathedral of Bamberg and the double portal of the south façade of Strasbourg. Rowe's aim is to uncover how Ecclesia and Synagoga were sculpted, how and why they were combined with other sculptures, how they were viewed by those who were meant to see them and lastly how they related to the Jewish communities living in each of the three cathedral cities.

Part i opens with an overview of the situation of Jews in medieval Latin Christendom in which Rowe emphasises the accelerating deterioration of Christian attitudes to Jews from the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. The second introductory chapter traces the artistic use of female personification from antiquity to the specific female representations of Ecclesia and Synagoga before the thirteenth century. Rowe draws particular attention to classical models of exalting male dominion by coupling a powerful male figure with female figures representing victory or defeat. She also connects the artistic use of Ecclesia and Synagoga with a fifth-century Christian-Jewish disputation in which the protagonists are Ecclesia and Synagoga: the Altercatio Ecclesiae and Synagogae. Miniatures produced to illuminate liturgical texts in monastic settings seem to have used Ecclesia and Synagoga in a number of ways to bring to life the idea that Judaism had been superseded by Christianity and that Jews were culpable for the crucifixion. Thus Synagoga was often provided with a blindfold to indicate that Jews were blind to the true meaning of the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and a broken lance to declare that Judaism's day had passed. Ecclesia's lance was, of course, intact; she was often depicted with a chalice in her hand to invoke the celebration of mass. Some miniatures have Ecclesia and Synagoga standing at the foot of the crucified Christ with Ecclesia catching the blood and water streaming out of Christ's pierced side.

All of this material is used in Part ii as the basis of Rowe's fine case studies of the Ecclesia and Synagoga sculptures of Reims, Bamberg and Strasbourg in their full artistic and historical context. Rowe sets great store by the fact that it was in these three cities that Ecclesia and Synagoga entered the architectural medium as large sculptures and that they were part of or close to statutes which represented some form of rulership as in figures of kings on the south façade of Reims Cathedral, or the so-called Bamberg Rider just inside the Fürstenportal, or the figure of Solomon on the column which marks the centre of the double portals of the south façade of the cathedral of Strasbourg. For her this is a throwback to classical ways of exalting male dominion. Thus she sees the juxtaposition of victorious Ecclesia over defeated Synagoga in tandem with a representation of earthly dominion as a celebration of ideal temporal power through which kings/emperors would keep Jews in their place. However, Rowe is quick to point out that in reality the Jews of Reims, Bamberg and Strasbourg were well integrated in their cities in the '20s and '30s of the thirteenth century; in Strasbourg Jews were even entrusted with the care of the city's banner and taken as a whole the three communities were economically successful.

Rowe's integration of art historical evidence with local urban and regional power politics is excellent. To include in this mix the histories of each cathedral town's Jewry is even better. Her insistence on the importance of the juxtaposition of the Ecclesia and Synagoga theme with images of earthly power is astute. Christian-Jewish relations were an integral part of medieval Christian theology and the twelfth and thirteenth centuries saw a proliferation of ecclesiastical texts commenting on every possible aspect of the agreed principle that Jews should have a place in Christian society in order to serve Christians. What this service was supposed to mean and how it should be expressed was open to a myriad of interpretations. In reality Jewish service was more often than not defined by the pragmatic decisions taken in their respect by the lords who had jurisdiction over them. Princes used Jews to their own political benefit in ways that often did not tally with ecclesiastical ideals. I am, therefore, very taken by Rowe's suggestion that the Ecclesia and Synagoga ensembles in Reims, Bamberg and Strasbourg referred to the ideal situation of the Respublica Christiana in which kings would keep ‘their’ Jews in check. However, I think it is more likely that they would have reminded their viewers of the need for princes to deal with ‘their’ Jews according to ecclesiastical norms rather than that they would have been seen as an acknowledgement of any particular royal/imperial policies. Would the ecclesiastics of Bamberg, for example, have interpreted Frederick ii's charter of July 1236 as keeping Jews in check? That charter deemed the Jews of Germany to be servi of the emperor's chamber, but at the same time it gave German Jews privileges which ran counter to fundamental principles of canon law.

Christian-Jewish relations in the Middle Ages were rife with paradoxes and ambiguities. Theory and practice were usually at loggerheads and the position of Jews relied on many more immediate factors than royal/imperial pronouncements. Rowe has used her understanding of these complex matters to probe the Ecclesia and Synagoga ensembles of Reims, Bamberg and Strasbourg in new ways. She has come up with intriguing suggestions which will contribute a very great deal to our understanding of how such art forms might have reflected and shaped all kinds of different ideas about Jews. I have no doubt that her book will stimulate the work of many researchers in a wide field of medieval history including the history of Christian-Jewish relations.