This book is about the role of royal women in the royal power structures of northern, that is Christian, Spain from the eighth to the twelfth century. In four chapters, plus introduction and conclusion, Lucy Pick points out that from the late eighth century until the reign of Alfonso vi (1065–1109) royal daughters were unmarried; since they were committed to virginity and were given control of religious houses with very considerable assets in property, they provided access to the sacred; they were essential to a network that sustained royal power. Beginning with the case of Urraca Fernández, who restored the see of Tuy in 1071, endowing it with many lavish gifts, Pick argues that Urraca was not exceptional but followed a line of royal women with comparable powers. She draws on the work of Annette Weiner to indicate that these women were themselves ‘inalienable possessions’ and on that of Barbara Rosenwein to underpin the existence and complexity of continuing networks.

Chapter i, on the post-Roman Visigothic background and the early Asturian kingdom, suggests that Visigothic inheritance law had a continuing significance in later periods because it provided for daughters to inherit as much as sons. Pick deals with the controversial issue of matrilineal succession and, while raising a doubt about it, argues that women had an ‘exceptionally prominent role’ (largely on the basis of epigraphic evidence) as also that there was a ‘transformation’ to patrilineal succession in the early Asturian kingdom. And Silo became king, she argues, because he married Adosinda.

Chapter ii, on virgins and martyrs, deals with the late antique background to commitment to virginity, with Spanish manuscripts of devotional works for women (of which a significant number survive from the early Middle Ages) and with the passiones of the tenth-century Córdoban martyrs Pelayo and Argentea. It would have been useful to have added a flavour of Ann Christys's treatment of the latter works, with its detail of the complications of textual transmission and the very wide range of unknowns. However, that these were works celebrating virginity and copied in northern Iberia comes across strongly, thereby emphasising a strong cultural interest in virginity in the north.

Chapter iii is the core of the book and focuses on networks – networks of power and networks of property. It makes the case for the existence and influence of female networks very well, showing how such networks underpinned monarchy. Women gave each other part properties and so the relationships continued; women could encourage men to rebel; women were dominae, lords, just as men were. Jimena Ordoñez, daughter of King Ordoño ii, is an example of the pivotal role of such women: it was she who gave her cousin Froila the property which was to become the basis of the powerful monastery of Celanova. A long treatment of the complex political dealings of another of Jimena's cousins, the Abbess Guntroda, follows, arguing that she was in competition with Mumadona, founder of the Portuguese monastery of Guimarães, for control of the cult of the martyr Pelayo. That Guntroda was thereby responsible for securing the translation of the relics of Pelayo to León depends on reading between the lines of the existing texts and is not entirely convincing. The subsequent argument, that the property and proprietary powers of royal women did not become institutionalised as the juridical category of infantazgo until the twelfth century, is more convincing; roles and powers were more varied before that.

Chapter iv is about gifts, memorialisation and the dead, with an argument that social memory and scholarly memory were interconnected. There is much about types of gift, especially those – like textiles and books – favoured by women and about the elaborate gifts made by some of them. There is an appropriate focus on the power of royal women's prayers for the royal dead and an extremely interesting section on royal prayer books of the mid-eleventh century. Queen Sancha, wife of Fernando i, commissioned manuscripts that ‘relate to the duty of remembering one’s family after death' and that dwell on penance and redemption; two contain an adaptation of the nocturnal office suitable for a king and queen to follow; and one contains a very personal confession in the voice of Sancha. Remarkably this confession has been corrected in another hand, which Lucy Pick suggests was by or at the behest of Urraca, Sancha's daughter, the same Urraca of the 1071 grant. This hand adds a litany and penitential Psalms which now, for the first time, show traces of Cluniac influence and of the world beyond Iberia. Sancha and Urraca both deliberately used manuscripts to strengthen their networks.

The final chapter looks forward to the changing world of strategic marriage alliances, the changing roles of royal women, features that persisted and parallels with other kingdoms; and it ends with an exhortation that we must study women if we want to understand medieval power structures. Overall a considerable amount and a wide range of source materials are treated by the author, with some reading between the lines; and there is full engagement with a wide range of secondary literature, with the occasional mis-citation. One sometimes wishes for a sharper critical approach: the texts of many charters, for example, are used without considering authorship – charters are not necessarily ‘snapshots’ of a moment and witness lists take their form for a range of reasons and cannot automatically be supposed to represent ‘supporters’. On the other hand Lucy Pick writes extremely well about religious language and her work on books, prayers and liturgy is illuminating. Moreover, the case for female networks is well and truly made.