Julie Kerr's book is a valuable contribution to the study of medieval English monasticism. Hospitality and almsgiving were an essential obligation placed by Christ on the faithful and enshrined in the Bible. At the last judgement Christ admits to the kingdom of heaven those who have fulfilled this duty: ‘I was hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in: naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me … Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me’ (Matthew xxv.35–6, 40). The Christian ethic infused the rule of St Benedict which, however, adapts it to the practicalities of conventual life and prevailing social conditions. Chapter 53 says ‘Great care and concern are to be shown in receiving the poor because in them more particularly Christ is received … all who present themselves are to be welcomed.’ However, the rich should be especially honoured (because of ‘our fear of them’) and so should ‘those who share our faith’. And Chapter 55 enjoins that whenever a monk receives new clothes ‘the old ones should be returned at once and stored in the wardrobe for the poor’. As Kerr points out, monastic hospitality was particularly important because it provided food and shelter for travellers, and care of the sick at a time when there was very little other provision for these necessities. Even after the arrival of the friars in the early thirteenth century, the monasteries could still provide pastoral care in those parish churches which lacked an effective incumbent. Kerr's main objective is to discover to what extent they fulfilled the duties imposed upon them by Christian teaching and the rule. She has tackled an immense task and has achieved her objective as well as can be expected in view of the obstacles obstructing complete understanding of the subject. Although the monasteries might observe the overall precepts, it is impossible to generalise about the practicalities because each house had its own particular customs. The autonomy of each Benedictine house survived, even after the establishment by Innocent iii in the Fourth Lateran Council (1214) of general and provincial chapters of the order and triennial visitations. The first general chapter held in England, in Oxford in 1218/19, had to recognise and respect the force of local observances. This is apparent in clause 14. Another problem faced by Kerr is the scarcity of sources and the difficulty of interpreting existing ones. For example, the pipe rolls, surely a concrete source of evidence, record the sums spent on alms by specific monasteries, but do not say to whom the alms were given, and often lumps the amounts given as alms with sums devoted to other purposes. Similarly, the late twelfth-century hosteller's accounts from Abingdon record the cost of horseshoes for monks, pilgrims and the poor, but not the cost of the upkeep of the guest-houses. In view of the rarity of monastic accounts for this comparatively early period, it is regrettable that the invaluable but problematical mid thirteenth-century manorial and obedientiary accounts from Bury St Edmund's abbey are unpublished. Kerr, relying on the ground-breaking article by P. D. A. Harvey (which concentrates on the codicological aspects of the accounts and on the light they throw on estate management) concludes that the accounts ‘contribute little to our understanding of hospitality’. But in fact they contain quite a lot of information about both hospitality and almsgiving. The legislation of the Benedictine general chapters would seem to reflect aspiration rather than actuality – the repetition of some regulations year after year suggests that infringements persisted. The same is true of ordinances of visitors, whether those appointed by the general chapters or commissioned by the pope. Anecdotal evidence culled from saints' Lives and such writers as Gerald of Wales and Walter Map also has drawbacks: the former because the hagiographer tended to eulogise the saint in question and perhaps intended to provide a model, an exemplum, for his audience to follow, while Gerald of Wales and Walter Map were satirists, not reporters. Kerr has made extensive use of monastic customaries, but she herself observes (p. 176) that they record ‘what was prescribed rather than practised, and deal with procedures’ (p. 176). Kerr demonstrates convincingly that in the period from the later eleventh century to the end of the thirteenth, two interrelated factors profoundly influenced monastic hospitality and almsgiving. First, the impact of royal, clerical and ecclesiastical financial taxes and other impositions caused the monks to limit the amount they spent on hospitality and alms, and a tendency to put corporate self-interest before open-handed charity. Hospitality became less personal – few guests were received by the head of the house personally. This led to the second change. Both hospitality and almsgiving became institutionalised and regulated: limitations were placed on the length of time a visitor might stay, and if one came with retainers, on their number – how many would be lodged and how many horses stabled. The rule itself stipulates that powerful guests should be shown especial honour, since this was in the convent's interests, and monks certainly expected to receive some recompense for their hospitality, in favours, gifts or money. Indeed, by the later Middle Ages they might resemble ‘paying guests’. Kerr points out that such guests had a much more comfortable and enjoyable time during their visit than pilgrims and the poor; they received only basic necessities and had little incentive to prolong their stay. Kerr discusses these and many other aspects of monastic hospitality and almsgiving with many graphic details. There are two appendices, one on the identity of Jocelin of Brackland, a debatable subject, and the other on the light thrown by the twelfth-century plan of the waterworks of Christ Church, Canterbury (reproduced as fig. 1 at p. 4). Kerr writes clear, fluent prose and her book is nicely produced, with eight figures, all appropriately captioned, an extensive bibliography and a good index. She and Boydell deserve the thanks of monastic historians for the successful completion and publication of a very ambitious project – one with the added advantage that it points the way to further research.