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252 Short Notices 'Topics' - like Humanism, education, rhetoric, printing conventions, w o m e n and gender, and the stage - come next, followed by a chapter on- 'Current Issues in the Criticism of Renaissance Literature', which is critical but respectful of many approaches. It illustrates the 'issues' by reference to differing readings of specific poems, a way of focusing equally on contexts and texts. However, while the theoretical content is tactfully presented, the chapter is too brief to reflect thefieldof contemporary thinking as a whole. In the current climate ofteaching, contexts are emphasised as never before, but Hadfield, while providing some ofthese, also allows writers and their works to emerge as the raison d'etre for study of the period in literature departments. R.S. White English, Communication and Cultural Studies School of Social and Cultural Studies The University of Western Australia Kery, Lotte, Canonical Collections of the Early Middle Ages (ca. 400-1140): a Bibliographical Guide to the Manuscripts and Literature (History of Medieval Canon Law), Washington, DC, The Catholic University of America Press, 1999; cloth; pp. xxxv, 311; R R P US$34.95; ISBN 0813209188. Canon law is not a subject that inspires much excitement among medievalists. The discipline tends to evoke images of crusty lawyers, beavering away at vast volumes of ecclesiastical legislation. As a subject of academic study, medieval canon law tends to be the reserve of a relatively small group of specialists, interested in what justification some Pope or bishop had for asserting his own authority. While most medievalists may be familiar with the name of Gratian, few have actually had occasion to read the Decretum, let alone to dip into the vast ocean of canon law collections compiled between the fifth century and Gratian's own day. The term 'canon law' is itself misleading, in being the product of an age that separated out theology from law as distinct disciplines. In fact, a 'canonical compilation' tended to include teaching and decisions covering a vast range of topics, from classic issues of Christian belief, to the thorny debates over property and political authority. In the absence of any definitive guide to ecclesiastical theory or practice, countless monks and clerics endeavoured to compile what they saw as authoritative guides to settle numerous problematic issues with which they were confronted. Short Notices 253 This bibliographical guide, compiled by Lotte Kery, provides a definitive bibliographical guide to the vast range of canon law collections compiled between the earlyfifthcentury and the time of Gratian. Some of these, such as the Collectio Hibernensis of the eighth century, the Decretales of Pseudo-Isidore from the mid ninth century, or the great collections of Burchard of Worms and of Ivo of Chartres from the eleventh and early twelfth centuries, exist in large numbers of manuscripts. Kery's guide provides a detailed list of manuscripts, editions and bibliography to all ofthese works, as well as to many others known only to specialists. Any scholar who comes across a manuscript containing some elements of a canonical collection has here an invaluable reference tool to help identify the work in question. A wealth of meticulous research has gone into this guide, relating to the identification of a vast range of texts, as well as to the dating and provenance of countless manuscripts. This is an indispensable tool for any scholar working with manuscripts that relate to canon law, as well as for any historian of the early medieval period who is concerned with the effort of medieval churchmen to impose rational order on the vast body of ecclesiastical precedent formulated over earlier centuries. Constant J. Mews Monash University Lumsden, Douglas W, And Then the End Will Come: Early Latin Christian Interpretations of the Opening of the Seven Seals, N e w York, Garland Publishing, 2001; cloth; pp.xii, 112; R R P US$40.00; ISBN 041592961X. This book is concerned with the ways in which Latin Christian authors from th fourth to the ninth centuries discussed a passage in the Apocalypse (Book of Revelation) which describes the opening of a sequence of seven seals by the Lamb. After examining commentaries written in late antiquity by Victorinus, Tyconius and Jerome, individual chapters consider the...

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