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198 Reviews Dor, Julette, Lesley Johnson and Jocelyn Wogan-Browne, ed., New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: The Holy Women of Liege and their Impa (Medieval W o m e n : Texts and Contexts 2), Turnhout, Brepols, 1998; board; pp. xii, 350; 2 maps, 7 b / w plates; R.R.P. not known. This collection of essays grew out of the papers given to a conferenc 'New Trends in Feminine Spirituality: The European Impact of the Holy W o m e n of Liege' held at the University of Liege, Belgium, in 1996. The conference brought together an international group of scholars with the aim of concentrating much-deserved attention on the nature and subsequent influence of key developments in female religious life in the diocese of Liege and neighbouring areas during the thirteenth century. During that century Liege was h o m e to two significant n e w phenomena. Firstly, the well-documented enthusiasm for the vita apostolica amongst Liege w o m e n from the late twelfth century resulted in a period of remarkable institutional creativity, as hospitals, leperhouses, anchorholds, Cistercian nunneries and the new institutional form of beguinages were pressed into the service of this new ideal by w o m e n seeking religious lives dedicated to its pursuit. Secondly, in a related development, a new and highly influential tradition of female hagiography emerged in Liege, a tradition which often focused on the inner mystical life of its subjects, as reported to an intimate spiritual friend or adviser. The w o m e n of Liege thus passed on to later medieval women an important legacy of institutional and literary innovations, as well as their spiritual focuses on the vita apostolica and the mystical life. These innovations have justly earned for the Liege w o m e n of the thirteenth century a significant role in twentieth-century accounts of the changing status of w o m e n in medieval Christianity. In their 'Introduction: Liege, the Medieval " W o m a n Question", and the Question of Medieval Women', which begins the book, Jocelyn WoganBrowne and Marie-Elisabeth Henneau provide a valuable discussion of the place of the Liege w o m e n in modern scholarship on medieval religious women. The Introduction acknowledges that much progress remains to be made in the study of the holy w o m e n of Liege, and expresses the hope that New Trends in Feminine Spirituality will serve as a contribution to th larger task. Readers m a y share m y disappointment that scholarship in general, and this book in particular, is not yet able to make a quantum leap Reviews 199 forward in the study of the w o m e n of Liege. The editors have meanwhile accepted the challenge of presenting as a whole some surprisingly disparate contributions, which, perhaps inevitably, vary considerably in quality and in proximity to the primary focuses of the volume. These difficulties notwithstanding, the volume contains some highly valuable work on both the w o m e n of Liege and their impact, as well as providing a stimulating insight into the state of scholarship on medieval religious w o m e n at the end of the twentieth century. There is no doubt that the collection will also succeed in generating n e w interest in the study of the w o m e n of Liege and their influence. The editors have grouped the seventeen essays in the volume into three sections. The first group of three essays examines the lives and vitae of the thirteenth-century w o m e n of Liege, and is the most tightly focused and satisfying of the three sections. Barbara Newman's examination on the role of demonic possession in the hagiographical writings of Thomas of Cantimpre has all the erudition and humanity which have come to characterise her work. Else Marie Wiberg Pedersen's provocative argument about Beatrice of Nazareth's vita opens up an important debate on the nature of male-authored mystical biography. Alexandra Barratt's choice of the theme of actual and metaphoric family relations in several of the vitae from Liege allows her...

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