Monastic Revival and Regional Identity in Early Normandy by Cassandra Potts (review)

book reviews605 religious art are continental, except for Bede, since late Anglo-Saxon authors, including Aelfric, ignored the subject. Raw is thus left to speculate as to what the homilist's views might have been. The analysis of some thirty images of the deity in the remaining chapters is organized by pictorial type, each of which Raw associates with a different mode of divine revelation: the "portrait-image" which "implies a presence," narrative illustration which "recalls God's intervention in history," and symbolic representation which "corresponds to the indirect forms of revelation" (p. 99). Each type, Raw believes, elicits a different viewer response (pp. 118-119). The analysis begins with illustrations of God's interventions in the Old Testament and scenes from the life of Christ (Chapter 5), then continues with iconic images of Christ as "the visible form of the Godhead" (Chapter 6) and symbolic representations of the Trinity incorporating the lamb, the dove, and, occasionally , Mary (Chapter 7). The final chapter describes the way these images aid the viewer in the contemplation of the Trinity which, the author argues, is "the focus of the religious life of prayer" (p. 169)· Raw's consideration of the images in the context of Anglo-Saxon spirituality is a significant contribution. So too is the textual evidence introduced in support of a number of new or expanded interpretations of individual images. Not all of the interpretations are equally compelling, however, and the study raises several questions. One wonders, for example, just how close to actual practice are Raw's theories concerning the use of the images. Troubling as well are her insensitivity to the formal complexities and multivalent character of medieval art, and, above all, her cavalier treatment of certain images. In order to convert the scenes of creation through the Son in the Junius manuscript into creation by the Trinity as taught by Aelfric, Raw had to misread the order and arrangement of the images and ignore half their contents. In the case of the drawings from the Arenberg Gospels, these interrelated components of a christological cycle are extracted from their pictorial context and treated as independent, selfcontained compositions. But the author's limitations as a reader of images are offset by her knowledge and mastery of texts, and so, in spite of the misinterpretation of some of the art, the book provides an impressive overview of late Anglo-Saxon thought and devotion to the Trinity. Jane E. Rosenthal Columbia University Monastic Revival and Regional Identity in Early Normandy. By Cassandra Potts. [Studies in the History of Medieval Religion, volume XI.] (Rochester, NewYork: The Boydell Press. 1997. Pp. xvi, 170. $72.00.) From the days of C. H. Haskins during World War I through the time of D. C. Douglas afterWorldWar II and now recently in the works of R. McKitterick and 606book reviews J. L. Nelson, the province of Normandy has attracted the attention of medievalists . The relative abundance of sources, the relative stability of the duchy under William the Conqueror, and the obvious importance of Normandy for English political, social, and constitutional history after 1066 help to account for this interest . Every generation of scholars asks new questions of the documents, or at least rephrases old ones. The book under review seeks to answer two questions: why did the Normans, descendants of ninth- and tenth-century Vikings who had largely destroyed the ecclesiastical structure of the region, restore, rebuild, and rejuvenate the monasteries ? How did the movement of monastic revival aid Normandy's regional and cultural identity and promote its political cohesion? After a critical analysis of the sources, the author gives a general survey of monasticism in western Neustria, and then explores the pattern of ducal and aristocratic gifts to religious houses. Benefactors' motives, Potts argues, combined traditional piety and political pragmatism. Gifts of lands, mills, markets, fairs, exemptions from tolls on rivers and roads, the tithes of parish churches wove the religious houses into the economic fabric of the region. Some monasteries accumulated cash and acted as banking houses; others, such as MontSaint -Michel, served as stabilizing influences in contested frontier regions. Most of this information is generally known, but the author provides new examples supporting her...