Jeffrey F. Hamburger

This is a wide-ranging collection of essays, looking at female monasticism in Western Europe from roughly 500 to 1500 with a special focus on the regions which lay within the Holy Roman Empire. Originally written as a catalogue to accompany art exhibitions held in Bonn and Essen in 2005, the articles show their origin in their focus on the rich material and artistic culture of these convents. Almost all are therefore very well illustrated, though I wish the accompanying photographs had been in colour rather than black and white—there was one statue of the Magdalene in particular which looked stunning, and I would really have appreciated seeing it in something other than monochrome. As the editor, Jeffrey Hamburger, states in his introduction, Crown and Veil is intended to bring together the work of American and German medievalists, two groups of scholars who do not interact as much as they should thanks to the language barrier and various other obstacles. Reading it certainly introduced me to some scholars and some historical figures of whom I had not previously been aware, and I will be mining the bibliography in the near future. Some editorial errors (mostly in the footnotes) as well as some minor clunkiness in the translation are minor quibbles with what is otherwise a fine collection.… (meer)