The explicit purpose behind the publication of this volume is to bring to attention a group of so far widely neglected religious women: ‘Hospitaller women have largely been ignored as many scholars have concentrated on military, and therefore masculine, themes’ (p. xiii). To this end, the editors have assembled a variety of papers on different aspects of Hospitaller women's religious lives, some of which were newly written and some of which were translated and revised for this collection. The introductory essay by Anthony Luttrell and Helen J. Nicholson provides an illuminating account of the basic issues in Hospitaller women's history and lifestyle, from the beginnings in the east to the foundation of houses in the west: recruitment, rules, daily life (scandals included), literacy and cultural interests. They demonstrate that Hospitaller women were ‘[a] full and integral part of the Hospital … because many of them formed part of wide family and social networks which assured the Hospital support, donations, male recruits and power’ (p. 42). Essays by Alan Forey and Francesco Tommasi place Hospitaller women in the wider context of the military orders: the former casts light on the status and functions of women within these communities; the latter reflects on the relationship between ‘men and women of the Hospitaller, Templar and Teutonic Orders’. Both scholars provide interesting insights into the organisation, lifestyles and conflicts within communities in which men and women often lived side by side. The authors, all experts in the study of medieval military orders, try especially to clarify the often indiscriminately and confusingly used terminology (for example donates, sorores, consorores) applied to describe the female members of the Hospitallers (and of other military orders) and their different functions within in the orders. The articles by Myra Struckmeyer (on Mynchin Buckland, Somerset), Luis García-Guijarro Ramos (on Sigena, Aragon), Johannes A. Mol (on Frisia) and (again) H. Nicholson (on Aconbury, Herefordshire) and F. Tommasi (on Perugia) are case studies, illuminating the different situations in female Hospitaller communities all over Europe. A particularly interesting insight into Hospitaller women's spirituality and their pursuit of sanctity is afforded by Paulette L'Hermite-Leclercq's exploration of the life of the Hospitaller saint Fleur de Beaulieu (d. 1347). In her article we find additional information about all kinds of practical issues in the lives of female Hospitallers, about their education, the community's daily life, the activities of the sisters and their ideal of sanctity. It is, however, a pity that these topics in particular are not further elaborated in the articles on individual Hospitaller houses where they would have added to the reader's understanding of the subject. On the whole, however, this volume allows interesting insights into the foundation, structures, organisation and – occasionally – spiritual and cultural life of a hitherto neglected form of female religious activity.