The upsurge of studies of Hildegard of Bingen, generated in Europe following the eight-hundredth anniversary in 1979 of her death and in America by the publication of Barbara Newman's Sister of wisdom in 1987, has quickened in the last fifteen years with a number of learned collections, among them those edited by Charles Burnett and Peter Dronke, Alfred Haverkamp, Rainer Berndt, Barbara Newman and Änne Bäumer-Schleinkofer. The canonisation of Hildegard on 10 May 2012, after the longest canonisation process in the history of the Catholic Church, and her elevation to become the fourth female Doctor of the Church on 27 May of the same year have furthered stimulated this scholarly output. The Brill Companion, edited by Kienzle, Stoudt and Ferzoco, is a worthy contribution to this group of scholarly collections, while making clear especially in the fine article by Michael Embach, that Hildegard's afterlife has not accorded fully with her influence either during her lifetime or in the several hundred years afterward. Recent views of her as an artist are incorrect; the influence (if not the originality and beauty) of her music has been exaggerated; and the novelty of her visions has been, in certain respects, overblown. The essays collected here situate the Sibyl of the Rhineland thoughtfully; all are careful and detailed; and several (notably those by Franz Felten and Suzanne Ruge) significantly advance our knowledge of Hildegard and her historical context. As is inevitable in a multi-authored volume, there is some internal inconsistency (for example, about Engelberg ms 103 and about the liturgical location of Hildegard's music) and it would have been helpful for the editors to have pointed this out. Moreover, the volume as a whole is not really a handbook or companion, and despite the editors' hope (expressed on p. 4), it will not serve as a guide for undergraduate and graduate students. Some of the articles are too specialised to be of use to students; some deal with topics that, although interesting, do not quite seem appropriate for a handbook. There is no general discussion of two of Hildegard's three visionary works, which are the core of her legacy, and the editors' introduction is mostly a summary of the articles rather than a general introduction to Hildegard or Hildegard studies. None the less the volume is a welcome addition to current Hildegardian scholarship. It is carefully edited, contains a wealth of bibliographical information, and achieves an impressively high level of scholarly sophistication.