This is the inaugural volume of a series that promises ‘definitive surveys’ which are intended to be ‘indispensable and authoritative companions for some of the most important areas of medieval research’. Medieval holy women in the Christian tradition is all these things. It brings into focus those women (of widely varying social and institutional backgrounds) who, by their visions, writings or reputation for sanctity, managed to achieve a degree of spiritual authority and influence. After a short introduction by the editors, the book begins with a sequence of five synoptic ‘introductory essays’ that set out the historical and interpretative context for the case studies that follow: first, and most substantially, Dyan Elliot on the body and spirituality and Alastair Minnis on the religious roles available (and, increasingly, those denied) to women; then John Coakley on women's voices and male clerical authors, John van Engen on sister-books, and Peter Biller on women and dissent (Cathars, Waldensians and Lollards). There follows a series of chapters on the holy women of medieval Europe, written by a range of (almost exclusively anglo-american) scholars and intended as authoritative introductions to the women and the scholarly traditions around them. The chapters are organised by geopolitical region. There is a survey chapter for each region, followed (usually) by a number of chapters on individual women. The treatment is markedly unequal, a state of affairs acknowledged by Minnis and Voaden, who explain that it is ‘substantially determined by the present state of our knowledge’ (p. 6). Thus part i, ‘The British Isles’, consists of a survey chapter plus chapters on Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe; France, a survey plus Heloise and Marguerite Porete; ‘The German territories’, a survey plus no fewer than seven further chapters (Hildegard of Bingen, Elisabeth of Schönau, Margaret Ebner, Mechtild of Magdeburg, Mechtild of Hackeborn, Gertrude of Helfta and Dorothy of Montau); the Iberian Peninsula, a survey chapter only; Italy, a survey plus Agnes of Prague and Guglielma of Milan (combined), Angela of Foligno and Catherine of Siena; the Low Countries, a survey plus Hadewijch; and Scandinavia, a survey chapter only. The latter (rest assured) includes a substantial discussion of St Bridget of Sweden, including her travels in and reception throughout Europe. Her example highlights one lacuna in the collection: some of these women, through the dissemination of their lives, writings or reputations, attained the status of international celebrities, admiration for, and imitation of whom, cut across the regional boundaries that are inscribed in the volume's design. It is a shame that space could not have been found for a consideration of this aspect of the mulieres sanctae, and surprising too, given the seminal nature of Rosalynn Voaden's earlier collection, Prophets abroad (1996). But Medieval holy women will undoubtedly be an invaluable resource for anyone beginning work on any of the women it includes, or seeking to contextualise or add a comparative dimension to the holy women whom they already know, or seeking to understand broader questions of gender and spirituality across the period.