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754book reviews Cultural Identity and Cultural Integration:Ireland and Europe in the Early Middle Ages. Edited by Doris Edel. (Portland, Oregon: Four Courts Press, c/o ISBS. 1995.Pp. 208. $49.50.) Because of its vague title, I expected this coUection of essays to resemble many others, that is, to be disorganized and eclectic. But, surprisingly, this is a relatively coherent, thematicaUy linked set of articles, originaUy delivered at a conference on Celtic Studies at the University of Utrecht, held in celebration of the seventieth anniversary of a chair in the same discipline. Although the authors include both old hands and new faces, and although the book is divided into two sections ("Literarization" and "Christianization"), almost aU the essays discuss the effect of Latin cultural influences on a society that never officiaUy hosted the Romans as invaders.And despite the very short introduction, the essays readüy reveal their connecting themes. Every medievalist agrees that Ireland was dUferent in the Middle Ages. Debates in recent years have focused on the quaUty and quantity of dUference.The editor and authors ofthis book hold that the Irish participated vigorously in the Christian culture of the continent, but that they became literate and practiced Uteracy dUferently.This occurred for three reasons: because the Irish accepted Uteracy wiUingly, not as part of an imperiaUst culture imposed by Romans; because the "native"people (the Irish) had been in place for centuries before they became literate (unlike, say, the Germanic tribes) and hence could more easily assimilate their traditions and the written word; and because Uteracy was not, by itseU, transformative of the culture. Laws, for instance, retained an archaic, poetic component and preserved ancient institutions once finaUy committed to writing. The essays cover everything from cosmology to epic, Latin nouns to historical writing. One of the best pieces is by Marina Smyth, on the Irish view of the cosmos as expressed in seventh-century Hiberno-Latin texts. Smyth shows how the Irish accepted the very poor science of the Christian Fathers but added some local features to their cosmology; for instance, they emphasized the phases of the moon and sun, and had a fondness for birds. Giselle de Nie also contributes an illuminating discussion of Gregory of Tours and Caesarius of Aries that places the beliefs of both bishops in the soUd context of Christian practice and symbols. De Nie counters interpretation of Gregory as a superstitious simpleton, instead analyzing his use of magical miracles to depaganize his neighbors in preparation for a fuU-scale, interior, Uterate conversion to Christianity .The latter essay is not about Ireland, but is consistent with the book's themes. The old nativist-versus-Christian argument of Celticists and historians has given way here to a more civilized, rational understanding ofa complex process of Uteracy and religious change.Although some of the contributions are less innovative than others, they are also more accessible to non-speciaUsts. For example , Pádraig ó Riain's essay on the location of Irish churches on territorial boundaries, which had as much to do with profits as sacred space, wiU be old BOOK REVIEWS755 hat to Celticists. But most readers wiU find it and the other essays to be a good introduction to a Christianizing culture. Lisa M. Bitel University ofKansas Medieval Medieval Canon Law. By James A. Brundage. [The MedievalWorld.] (NewYork: Longman. 1995. Pp. xii, 260. $12.99 paperback.) In the course of the last fifty years American historians of the Middle Ages have come to realize the remarkable role canon law played in the development ofWestern Europe. Canon Law "formed a crucial component of medieval life and thought. Its rules affected the Uves and actions of practicaUy everyone, its enforcement mechanisms were increasingly able to reach into everyday affairs at aU social levels, from peasant viUages to royal households, and the ideas debated in the canon law schools constituted an influential and pervasive element in medieval inteUectuaI Ufe."The records of church courts and the archives of ecclesiastical administrators "make up a very large fraction of the evidence that survives from the Middle Ages" (p. ix). Up until the appearance of this volume, however, novices had at hand no really appropriate survey of the...

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