Rosalind Brooke, whom, sadly, I never had the chance to meet, was a great luminary in the field of Franciscan studies. As an English woman who studied male Franciscans, it must not have been easy for her: the study of Friars Minor, even today, is heavily dominated by male and/or Italian scholars. For writers in English to make their mark in the Italian scholarship is still difficult. Brooke defended her PhD thesis in 1949, at a time when female historians were overall not many in number. She is, as far as I am aware, the first English female scholar of the friars, and had found the good fortune of walking further the trail opened up by English scholars such as Andrew G. Little and John H. R. Moorman. Brooke gifted us two excellent monographs, Early Franciscan government: Elias to Bonaventure and The image of St Francis. Along with her edition and translation of the writings of early companions of Francis, Scripta Leonis, her work has been indispensable to the scholars of the early history of Friars Minor. Her exhaustive approach with respect to primary sources; rational, sound and level-headed analysis of evidence; and non-partisan conclusions stood out in a field where often emotions ran high, and siding with historical figures has been the norm.

It is therefore delightful to see a book dedicated to her memory by Michael F. Cusato and Michael J. P. Robson, two renowned scholars of Franciscan history. After an introduction that summarises the scholarly contribution of Brooke, the essays are grouped in four thematic parts. Part i is titled ‘Historiography of Rosalind Brooke’. Here, Michael Blastic's essay considers which sources Brooke deemed more trustworthy and accurate than others, i.e. what was Brooke's position vis-à-vis the Franciscan Question? The answer is Celano's First and Second Lives, and the writings of Francis's three companions, Leo, Rufino and Angelo. In an essay written in Italian, Maria Pia Alberzoni focuses on the contribution of Brooke to the historical portraiture of the controversial minister-general Elias of Cortona, who was the subject of Brooke's PhD thesis and the central figure in her Early Franciscan government. The latter is mined by Alberzoni for insights about Elias, and praised for methodological soundness. She also points out that Brooke was the first scholar to signal that the great part of the 1260 Narbonne constitutions was actually legislated in 1239–44 and Bonaventure put them in order. Brooke's theory was definitively proved with the edition of the Pre-Narbonne constitution by Cesare Cenci in 1990. Alberzoni also notes the fact that Brooke's Early Franciscan government, published in 1959, has been almost totally ignored in the Italian scholarship. Italian scholars have instead turned to Giulia Barone's book, Frate Elia, published in 1978, which does not cite or mention Brooke's work at all. This strange and highly unfortunate omission was most probably the result of the language barrier: even today, books on medieval history published in English find their way into Italian scholarship often late, if ever, unless they are translated into Italian. Bert Roest's article expands on Alberzoni's arguments concerning the methodological and source-critical attention in Brooke's work, and proves further the ‘misadventure’ of Brooke's work among Italian scholars by citing a high number of studies, some quite recent, which claimed Barone to be the first scholar to study Elias in depth.

The second part comprises essays on Franciscan history that touch on themes Brooke herself was interested in. Michael Cusato provides a well-researched background story and analysis of the 1255 encyclical letter published jointly by the heads of the Dominican and Franciscan orders and steeped in an apocalyptic vision and imagery. Jens Röhrkasten recasts the familiar story of Bonaventure's efforts to reform and defend the Franciscan order within the context of increasing local diversity, as different provinces had to adapt to the local cultural and political environments. The late David Luscombe's essay focuses on Jerarchie, a little-studied French translation by Franciscan John Pecham, the archbishop of Canterbury (1279–92), penned at the request of Queen Eleanor. The original Latin version has not survived and its authorship is unknown. It is a curious short text where the heavenly hierarchy is matched with the hierarchy of the royal court. Luscombe provides the French version and the English translation of the text at the end. Luigi Pellegrini charts the adventures of a Franciscan liturgical manuscript, which originally belonging to the Assisi convent, and ended up in the library of the St Bonaventure University in New York. Peter Murray Jones's article on a lesser known fifteenth-century Franciscan medicus, William Holme, will certainly be of tremendous interest for those who study the history of medicine, and is a great contribution to the emerging field of the history of Franciscan medical practice.

Part iii is titled ‘Hagiographical Sources’ and is inspired by the work of Brooke in the early hagiographical accounts of Francis, notably with her Scripta Leonis. Maria Teresa Dolso takes up the familiar argument that the elevation to sainthood of Anthony of Padua, who was renowned for his learning and preaching, reflected the changing priorities of the early Franciscans. She adds to the existing literature by providing evidence from a variety of Franciscan accounts, although I cannot say that I agree with her when she links the argument to pastoral ‘duties’ or ‘responsibilities’ of friars. Franciscans, having refused from the outset to become parish priests, had no such duty or responsibility: their preaching in words was totally voluntary. In a thoughtful article, Michael Robson compares Compilatio Assisiensis, which has the accounts of Francis's early companions, to Thomas of Eccleston's De adventu, specifically looking at how these two different sources approached changes in the Order. It makes very interesting reading to see how the companions’ attitude that represent the eremitical faction within the Order compares to Eccleston's, who chronicled the life of friars in English towns. André Vauchez contributes to the volume with an examination of sermons on Francis of Assisi and Franciscan saints preached in Italy between 1230 and 1350, mostly by mendicants. He shows the links between these sermons and the hagiographical sources, and how sermons helped publicise the saintly virtues described in the vitae and legendae.

The last and fourth part of the volume is titled ‘Art’, matching the theme of Brooke's last monograph, The image of Francis. The first article is penned by the great Olivi scholar David Burr, who examines Olivi's understanding of history and art. In this rich exposition, Burr mines a variety of Olivi's works to demonstrate his interest in biblical metaphors and through them developing a new understanding of history as past and future. William Cook, who is a renowned expert of Franciscan art, contributes with an engaging essay on how the agenda of the fresco cycles on Francis often differs from the saint's representation in narrative sources. The last two articles, by Nigel Morgan and Kathleen Giles Arthur, focus respectively on the involvement of Franciscans in illustrated Gulbenkian and Abingdon Apocalypses with commentaries, and four fifteenth-century Franciscan altarpieces within the context of Observant Reform. Both articles present cutting-edge scholarship complete with coloured reproductions of the images and altarpieces to which they refer.

As a whole, this volume is an amazing resource for those of us who are fascinated by the dramatic history of medieval Friars Minor. It brings together some of the world's best experts in Franciscan history, and for that the editors need to be congratulated. The level of scholarship is consistently very high, and many essays break new ground. There is no doubt that Rosalind Brooke would have been delighted to see such a splendid volume published in her memory, and in a small but reassuring way this book repays the collective debt we all owe to her.