Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings (review)

228 Short Notices 'who could afford to regard its w o m e n as an ornamental asset, while strictly subordinating them to the interests of its primary asset, the land' (p. 1). The case studies, 'The lady', 'The working w o m a n in town and country', 'The education of women' and 'Nunneries', are all quite short and demonstrate Power's feminist and economic historical concerns. A wide range of primary sources are cited and discussed, from poets such as Chaucer, Gower and Langland, letters such as those of the Paston and Stonor families, ballads and religious treatises like Hali Meidenhad, and commercial records such as Poll Tax returns, gild regulations and manorial rolls. Finally, there are forty-two well-chosen black and white illustrations which enhance the book substantially. Medieval Women is readable and informative, and while it is not essentialreadingfor the scholar, it will delight the general reader. Carole M. Cusack School of Studies in Religion University of Sydney Raguin, Virginia Chieffo, Kathryn Brush and Peter Draper, ed., Artistic Integration in Gothic Buildings, Toronto, University of Toronto Press, 199 paper; pp. 348; R.R.P. US$25.95. The sixteen essays collected here preserve and continue what must have bee a remarkably stimulating symposium on early Gothic churches held at York University, Toronto, in April 1989. It gathered together scholars working within architectural and art history, along with those from history, liturgy and theology, with the intention of creating a dialogue between these disciplines and to explore the interrelationship of social, political, artistic and religious dimensions of the Gothic church. Many of the participants, such as Eric Fernie, Peter Draper, Madeline H. Caviness, Willibald Sauerlander and Arnold Klukas, will be familiar to researchers in this field. Together, this wellintegrated collection presents a critical examination of the treatment of the Gothic churches, both historiographically and through the analysis of specific buildings. These include obvious examples such as Chartres Cathedral, SaintDenis , Durham and Sainte-Chapelle, and the less familiar, at least to Englishspeaking scholars, such as Naumburg or Poitiers. The subjects tackled here are varied. Roger E. Reynolds and Bernard McGinn locate these monuments within a liturgical and a theological context, Beat Brenk discusses Sainte-Chapelle as reflecting Capetian political ideas, while Barbara Abou-El-Haj considers the ways in which major cathedral campaigns were affected by the social and economic conditions both within the chapter and without. Madeline Caviness discusses the themes found within the book, by examining the possible meanings of terms such as 'artistic', Short Notices 229 'integration' and 'Gothic' for a twelfth-century audience. Then she reflects upon the different approaches taken by 'structuralist' art historians like Male and the formalist modernists of the 1950s and 1960s. She argues that in the post-modern revivalism of the 1990s, which, unlike the Neoclassical or Gothic Revival movements, lacks an historical focus or label, it is easier for scholars to look at the assemblage of the Gothic church which had a sporadic development over time as a coherent creation. The lack of purity of form, or the alterations in iconographical programmes, so much a feature of seasonal building campaigns, cease to be distractions, but rather indicative of changing needs or ideas. This can be seen, for example, in both Kurmann and Sauerlander's discussions of Chartres Cathedral, the iconography of the stained-glass and the cult of Saint Anne. All these scholars are sensitive to the different, yet interconnected roles the various aspects of a building play. This is a stimulating collection of the variety of approaches taken in the examination of medieval architecture over the past decade, bringing together many of the principal scholars. As such, it is a highly useful volume for both researchers and students. Judith Collard Department of Art History and Theory University of Otago ...