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Reviews 253 Wood, Ian N. and Armstrong, Guyda, ed., Christianizing People and Converting Individuals (International Medieval Research 7), Turnhout, Brepols, 2000; board; pp. x, 351; 34 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. E U R 55.00; ISBN 250351086. The title of this collection puts paid to a long and complicated debate with scholarship on religious conversion, insisting that while individuals are 'converted ', peoples are 'Christianized'. However, there are many other controversial debates still alive and kicking and given space within its covers. This volume results from the 1997 Leeds International Medieval Congress, the theme of which was 'Conversion'. The range of the collected papers is impressive, covering the early medieval east and west, the conversion of central and eastern Europe, and an entire section on the conversion of Scandinavia, among other areas. As is always the case with such collections, it is only possible to select a sample ofpapers for comment. Wood's own 'Some Historical Re-identifications and the Christianization of Kent' reviews the issue of whether the Anglo-Saxons had sizeable temples or shrines. W o o d advocates scepticism with reference to Germanic shrines, which he thinks were, ifthey actually existed, modelled either on Roman temples or Christian churches. Wood's final point, that Christianity and 'paganism' were never 'hermetically separate' (p. 35) is uncontroversial, but the erosion ofwhat is understood to be known about traditional Germanic religion which he proposes is not. The same issues concern Anne-Sofie Graslund, in 'New Perspectives on an Old Problem: Uppsala and the Christianization of Sweden'. She revisits A d a m of Bremen's description of the temple complex at Uppsala and the arguments for it being influenced by structures as diverse as the Lateran Palace and 'west Slavonic temple buldings' (p. 62), cautiously according a degree of accuracy to Adam in the light ofthe sparse archaeological evidence. Henrik Janson's 'Adam of Bremen and the Conversion of Scandinavia' goes in a different direction, placing Adam's description in the politicized context of eleventh-century papal straggles. His conclusion is that 'The templum and domus of Uppsala was not a pagan temple in our sense, but a church resisting the sacred Roman Empire for reasons not very different from those of the Gregorians and other enemies of Henry IV gathering around Gregory VII' (p. 88). This radically disagrees with Graslund, and as his paper is a mere six pages, greater depth might have settled the issue. However, these disagreements over the interpretation ofthe same pieces of evidence are what make Christianizing Peoples and Converting Individuals occasionally exhilarating, if somewhat frustrating, reading. 254 Reviews The range of the evidence analysed in the volume is very wide, with sources including charters, archaeology, laws, saints' vitae, art works and architecture, and chronicles (in Zsolt Hunyadi's 'Signs of Conversion in Early Medieval Charters', Janos M . Bak's 'Signs of Conversion in Central European Laws' and Laszlo Veszpremy's 'Conversion in Chronicles: The Hungarian Case', for example). The issue of forced conversion is considered with reference to the baptism of Jews in medieval Europe, and also to the role of the military orders in the conversion of Prussia and Livonia. Section Seven, 'Competing Faiths in Asia: Muslims, Christians, Zoroastrians, and Mongols' is especially stimulating as Asia is not often considered in medieval studies, 'the middle ages' being essentially a Eurocentric concept. The relevance of the debates surrounding conversion in the medieval period to the scholarly preoccupations of the present is starkly demonstrated in Peter O'Brien's fascinating essay 'Platonism and Plagiarism at the End of the Middle Ages'. Here Leo Strauss's contention that the Western esoteric tradition has its origins in the 'Jewish and Islamic philosophy of the Middle Ages' (p. 304) is taken further, and the origins of Machiavelli's thought are sought in the encounter of Christianity and Islam. O'Brien notes that 'superior Islamic achievements put European scholars in a precarious position' (p. 310) and that the notion of a single, timeless truth was eroded as these scholars' knowledge of Islam increased, leading 'European scholars to expect multiple and competing truths'(p. 314). This is a stimulating and absorbing volume, though there are some criticisms to be...

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