Handbook for Curates: A Late Medieval Manual on Pastoral Ministry (2013)

Handbook for Curates: A Late Medieval Manual on Pastoral Ministry. By Guido of Monte Rochen. Translated by Anne T. Thayer. (Washington, D.C: Catholic University of America Press, 2011, pp xliv, 350. $34.95.); The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages: Production, Reception, and Performance in Western Christianity. Edited by Susan Boynton and Diane J. Reilly. (New York: Columbia University Press, 201 1, pp. viii, 364. $29.50, paper. $89.50, cloth.) Wonderful to Relate: Miracle Stories and Miracle Collecting in High Medieval England, By Rachel Koopmans. (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011, pp. 337. $65.00.)The assumption of increased individuality and internality in late medieval Christian piety is so broad as to have become a commonplace among historians of medieval Christianity. Because of the prevalence of this idea, it is all the more important to remember that the individual and internal direction of medieval devotion was never any real threat to the authority or the unity of the church. Certainly there were more than a few rambunctious thinkers who individualized their piety a bit too far, but the church had effective means of dealing with such heretics. Throughout the entire medieval period, however interior and individual a person's piety might have been, it was always mediated by the church and her agents. This mediation could be seen in the requirement of annual confession and participation in the eucharist by all Christians; or encouraging pilgrimages; or devotion to holy relics; or the adoration of the blessed Sacrament. Sometimes the mediation was manifested in the correction or suppression of heterodoxy, or in the promotion of more orthodox mystics or scholars.The challenge for historians is to translate medieval sources - the available texts - into an understanding of the actual practice of piety during the period. The visual arts are particularly helpful, but the texts themselves are remarkably rich in evidence as well, and continue to provide us with insight into what Christians thought it meant to act as Christians in the Middle Ages. They also teach us about the use and influence of the books themselves - the material object - as they were passed from person to person, from monastic house to monastic house, from diocese to diocese. Where books went, and what people did with them there, matters as much as the words written on the parchment. Two recent publications investigate religious texts from the late Middle Ages: the first, Manipulas Curatorum, or Handbook for Curates, by Guido of Monte Rochen, has been translated into English by Anne Thayer; the second, Wonderful to Relate, is a study of miracle collections in late medieval England. A third publication, The Practice of the Bible in the Middle Ages, is a collection of essays on the religious text, not just of the Middle Ages, but throughout Christian history: the bible.Indeed, it is important to realize that the bible has been written, read, and acted on in a remarkable variety of ways throughout history. Beryl Smalley's The Study of the Bible in the Middle Ages (1941) laid the ground work for the extensive scholarship in medieval biblical production and reception. Boyn ton's and Reilly's volume reflects a good portion of this scholarship. What comes across most powerfully in these essays is the sheer ubiquity of the bible in the period. From Boynton's opening chapter on the constant presence of the bible in the monastic offices, to essays on the large lectern and giant bibles apparently used in chapter in the monasteries (the size of the writing being particularly helpful when reading the night office by candlelight); from the orthodox and less-than-orthodox exegesis of the mendicant orders to the early examples of vernacular biblical texts in English, French, and Castilian; we are presented with bibles that reflect the adoration and sanctity of their creators and users as well as their utility and economy. …