This collection of sixteen papers is the product of a colloquium of medieval and biblical specialists held in Tours in 2009. Nicolas of Lyre was a Norman by birth, who entered the Franciscan order at Verneuil, and in due course proceeded to Paris, where he became a regent master in theology in about the year 1308–9. His fame as a biblical exegete derived from his postills, a commentary on the entire text of the Bible, which he completed in the years 1322–31.That his postills were widely read in the following three centuries is attested by their numerous surviving manuscripts and early printed editions. In fact they came to vie with the standard commentary, the Glossa ordinaria, which from the twelfth century onwards accompanied every copy of the Bible text. The editor of this symposium, Gilbert Dahan, has already given us a masterly volume on Christian exegesis in the Middle Ages. Here, in a paper on the hermeneutic of Nicolas, he elucidates the features of Nicolas's commentary that made it a standard work for theologians in the universities until, and including, the age of Martin Luther. The late Beryl Smalley chronicled the decline in the earlier preoccupation with the spiritual (i.e. allegorical and anagogical) sense of the biblical text among thirteenth-century exegetes and the interest of the mendicants in exploring the use of Hebrew to elucidate the literal meaning of the texts. Gilbert Dahan and his colleagues show that Nicolas of Lyre dwarfed all his predecessors both in his concentration upon the literal and historical sense of the Bible texts and his mastery of the work of Jewish exegetes, especially that of the great Rabbi Salomon (Rashdi), whom he constantly quotes to elucidate the texts. Several contributors to this book speculate about the sources from which Nicolas derived his knowledge of Hebrew, of which the most probable seems to be a baptised Jew. Nicolas's debt to Rabbinic exegesis did not prevent him from using his knowledge of the language to pursue polemics against the Jewish rejection of Christianity. Nicolas served twice as Provincial Minister of the Friars Minor, first in France and secondly for Burgundy. Interestingly, our authors discover in his postills no evidence of affinity with the radical views that were threatening his order with schism during the years of his Paris regency. Philip Krey's paper shows that in his commentary on the Apocalypse Nicolas carefully avoids any of the Joachite tendencies embraced by Peter Olivi and the Spiritual party. This volume is an important and erudite contribution to the study of biblical exegesis in the Middle Ages.