The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069-1215 by Janet Burton (review)

310BOOK REVIEWS document for an understanding of the English Monastic Revival in its secondgeneration (that is, c. 1000) aspects, as well as of the Latin liturgy in that period. AU this has been provided by CA. Jones in his expansion of what must have been an exemplary doctoral dissertation. The professionalism evidenced throughout the present work would put many a veteran scholar to shame. One is reduced to wondering whether he has used "fulsomely" quite correctly (p. 36) or whether continue should not be translated "consistently" rather than "repeatedly " (pp. 114-115) to have anything to cavU at. The introduction is a model of informativeness, not only answering obvious questions as to the nature of the work presented but subtly making a case for it as not just a reworking of the Regularis Concordia of ¿Uthelwold (¿Elfric's teacher)—which is the way this letter has in the past been regarded—but as a quite full statement of views that have political as weU as cultural significance. The implications ofMXfric 's divergences from the Concordia as conveying the view that (to paraphrase a modern political epigram) yEthelred Unrasd is no Edgar—the two being respectively ^Elfric's and yïthelwold's monarchs—are deftly drawn out and give ¿Îlfric's work some of the topicaUty of that of his great contemporary, Wulfstan ofYork. Another highly striking contribution is the fresh and important demonstration of ties between the Epístola and the monastic cathedral establishment at Worcester, and more broadly to (St.) Wulfstan, the late eleventh-century bishop of that see and last survivor of the Anglo-Saxon episcopate (pp. 82-91). This is accomplished by codicological and palaeographical study of a close sort, showingJones to be as masterful in this area as in Old English phUology or the minutiae of nturgical history. Most impressive, perhaps, is that the claims made for this work of ^Elfric's do not exceed its apparent merits. Jones recognizes the possibility that parts of this customary may "reflect an 'academic' interest in the liturgy more than in the actual customs at Eynsham" (p. 41), and indeed one of the most useful contributions made here is to highlight the extent to which MXfric used the work of the Carolingian Uturgist Amalarius of Metz, for whom the "academic" interest is almost overwhelming. And there is a refreshing candor about difficulties in the structure of the Concordia, a document much harder to use than most of us like to admit. In all, most of what any scholar could want in order to be in fuU possession of this important "new" work of^Elfric's is here supplied. Richard W. Pfaff University ofNorth Carolina, Chapel Hill The Monastic Order in Yorkshire, 1069-1215. By Janet Burton. [Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, Fourth Series, 40.] (NewYork: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xxii, 352. $6995.) Some years ago, Janet Burton published a volume surveying the monastic scene in Britain, Monastic and Religious Orders in Britain, 1000-1300 (Cam- BOOK REVIEWS311 bridge, 1994). With the passage of time it has proved to be one of those useful, if not invaluable, works which, once read does not sit unrecaUed on the shelf for months or years but rather is taken down regularly for a reference to be checked or a half-formed memory made more substantial. And most useful of all, because of its easy prose style it can be given to students to read. Now,Janet Burton,with equal value for her readers, has turned back to where her interests evidently lay at the beginning of her career, to "the North," and has again focussed her attention on a smaUer canvas, that of the orders ofYorkshire. In so doing, she has been able to zoom in in more detaU on the minutiae of a region which has "a wealth [of sources] almost unparaUeled in other regions of Britain" (p. 19). This feast of documentary and physical remains is, as she acknowledges , not uniform, but in combination with ongoing and extensive research by a range of scholars from archaeologists to cultural historians provides a solid foundation for Dr. Burton's task here: to synthesize and explain the extraordinary growth of monasticism...