In spring 2005 two exhibitions under the title Krone und Schleier opened in two different venues in Germany; their overall subject was female monasticism, 500–1500, and the objects of art and of daily life which once belonged to female institutions of different denominations. The exhibits – some of them stunning works of art, others objects of daily use – represented the different areas of cloistered life, the spiritual and intellectual pursuits of religious women, their influences on the secular world and their spatial environment. The brilliantly illustrated catalogue (Krone und Schleier: Kunst aus mittelalterlichen Frauenklöstern, ed. Kunst- und Ausstellungshalle der Bundesrepublik Deutschland, Bonn, and Ruhrlandmuseum Essen, Munich 2005) presented a wide range of interdisciplinary introductory articles, some of them written by leading scholars in the field. These essays now appear in English translation in the book under review; they are accompanied by a number of black-and-white reproductions of objects shown in the exhibitions in order to present the visual context of the essays. Additionally, the editors have supplied three introductory essays. J. Hamburger starts with a brief overview of the historiography on the subject, ‘Histories of female monasticism’. Hamburger, who has an amazing track record in innovative research on the interdependence of female monastic life and the art used by the women, sees the present volume in the tradition of Eileen Power's Medieval English nunneries, c. 1275 to 1535 (first published 1922) and of her way of scrutinising women's history which of course predates current orthodoxies of feminist and gender historiography. Characteristically therefore, these issues are partially lacking in the articles in the present volume (as C. W. Bynum observes in her foreword), reflecting the scepticism of German scholars towards these forms of historiography (pp. 4–5). However, this does not diminish the quality of the volume's articles; quite the opposite, or, as J. Hamburger writes: ‘[T]his book was designed to bring together and, to a certain extent, confront American and Continental approaches to a subject that in its importance and interest transcends any one set of approaches or a single historiographic tradition’ (p. 9). Hamburger's point is nicely illustrated by J. Gerchow's and S. Marti's overview over the historiography on ‘Nuns’ work', ‘Caretaker institution’ and ‘Women's institutions’.

The instructive chapter by J. Gerchow, K. Bodarwé, S. Marti and H. Röckelein on ‘Early monasteries and foundations (500–1200)’ outlines the development of female monasticism as an organised form of life from the very beginnings in the fifth century to the twelfth century; the authors include the different forms of organisation of religious women as nuns and canonesses, their rules and important protagonists of monastic life (like Herrad of Hohenburg and Hildegard of Bingen), education and crafts, and aspects of patronage and the economy. The third introductory chapter moves on to the ‘Time of the orders, 1200–1550’; it describes new monastic tendencies from the twelfth century onwards, beginning with the Cistercians and proceeding to the new orders and to the Tertiaries and Beguines. The main part of the article, however, follows the topography of an ideal monastic house (for British houses researched in exemplary fashion by R. Gilchrist in Gender and material culture: the archaeology of religious women [London 1994], which appears in the bibliography but not in the article). The authors examine the different spaces within a religious house and issues like enclosure, contacts with the outside world and spiritual, intellectual and artistic pursuits. Many aspects already touched upon in these introductory chapters are investigated in more detail by specialist scholars in the articles that follow. R. Suckale and J. Hamburger examine different pieces of art in the context of their liturgical and devotional use and assess the importance of visual experience and imagery for religious women. Their article is well corroborated by C. Jäggi's and U. Lobedey's scrutiny of the organisation of space within female monastic compounds with special emphasis on the convent church, whereas G. Muschiol focuses on the liturgy as the spiritual centre of monastic life. B. Newman turns to the literary production of religious women, introducing a broad variety of writing women from Hrotsvit of Gandersheim († after 973) to thirteenth-century authors like the Helfta mystics. Her claim that we find among these women some striking examples to counterbalance the general perception of women's declining Latinity, however, is not wholly appropriate: women from a Benedictine or Cistercian background remained literate in Latin for longer than those who lived in mendicant communities. Newman mentions the Dominican Unterlinden Sisterbook as an example, indicating that mendicant sisters used Latin, but all the other Sisterbooks and the vast majority of texts from this background are written in the vernacular. The Unterlinden sisters had a former Benedictine nun as their Latin teacher, which makes their case special. A highly complex issue like the nature of female monastics' literacy would have deserved an article of its own which could also have examined the highly important subject of the nuns' and sisters' education and training. Here, scattered and generalising remarks in some articles are not sufficient to avoid misapprehensions

C. W. Bynum scrutinises a wide range of issues shaping female piety and devotion and rightly defends the later Middle Ages as a ‘period of female religious creativity’. From here the articles turn to the context in which female monastic life was embedded: H. Röckelein examines patronage and benefactors, G. Signori looks at the women's interaction with the outside world and W. Rösener considers convents as ‘economic entities’. K. Schreiner investigates how preachers, priests and pastoral guides simultaneously both cared for the women's spiritual well-being and exacted firm control over their communities' piety.

With its broad chronological, geographical and thematic approach Crown and veil provides a good and, overall, well-balanced introduction to a complex field of medieval religious history, although, unfortunately, the issues of female learning and literacy are not sufficiently represented.