San Benito y los Benedictinos Tome I: La Edad Media, 1; Tome II: La Edad Media, 2; Tome III: La Edad Moderna, 1; Tome IV: La Edad Moderna, 2; Tome V: La Edad Contemporánea, 1; Tome VI: La Edad Contemporánea, 2; Tomo VII: Cartografía; Tomo VIII: Indices by Antonio Linage Conde (review)

BOOK REVIEWS263 the older movement of the Humiliati. A Typology of Orders sorts them all out (13 columns). Notable monasteries with separate entries include Subiaco, the ecumenical Taizé.Tintern Abbey,Tokwon in Korea,Vallombroso, and Vézelay. Individuals whose alphabetical turn has come include Lorenzo Valla and Thomas Aquinas on religious life, Teresa of Avila and Thérèse of Lisieux, Francisco Suárez, Stephen Harding, Humbert of Romans, Cardinal Herbert Vaughan, and any number of founders whose names begin with Van. The regions whose monasteries and religious life receive extended special treatment in this volume include Hungary, the Holy Land (Terra Santa), Switzerland , and Tibet, with 30 columns for the United States and an unusual 150 for Latin America. An oddity is that some regional units are lumped under the rubric States (Statt Baltici, Statt di Nord Europa). A similar alphabetical displacement locates some topics under History (Storia): of Charity (hospitals, poor), of the Consecrated Life, or of the Missions. The tight focus of each entry on its relation to the monastic or religious context , the dense material available within each entry, the encompassing scale of the whole enterprise, the up-to-date bibliographies, and the historical professionalism throughout, make this volume like its predecessors indispensable to historians of Christendom or religion, especially for anything touching on monasticism under its many guises. Every library should have this tool. Robert I. Burns, SJ. University ofCalifornia at LosAngeles San Benito y los Benedictinos. Tome I: La Edad Media, 1; Tome II: La Edad Media, 2; Tome III: La Edad Moderna, 1; Tome IV: La Edad Moderna, 2; Tome V: La Edad Contemporánea, 1;Tome VI: La Edad Contemporánea, 2; Tomo VII: Cartografía; Tomo VIII: índices. By Antonio Linage Conde. (Braga: Ediçâo da Irmandade de S. Bento da Porta Aberta. 1992-93. Pp. xxxiv, 35-392, 37 illus.; 395-1129, 33-78 illus.; 1131-1695, 79-137 illus.; 1695-2245, 138-164 illus.; 2457-3058, 165-253 illus.; 3059-3722, 253-321 illus.; índices: 3727-4472; Cart.: No. 1-59H. Paperback.) Professor Linage Conde offers the reader nothing less than a fifteen-hundredyear survey of Benedictine monasticism. It is a narrative at once highly discursive and personal, overflowing with familiar ecclesial figures in the Western Church alongside a welter of relatively unknown minor figures from the monastic ranks. One should laud Linage Conde at the outset for attempting to provide what is sorely needed for scholar and student alike—a synthetic survey of the history of Benedictine monasticism. In this respect it is an invaluable update of the multi-volume history of the Benedictine Order written a half-century ago by Dom Philibert Schmitz. 264BOOK REVIEWS Contained in the seven volumes of this work are resources that one is not likely to find elsewhere. There is a separate volume containing indices and maps that serve as useful referents to the text. One would have hoped, however , to see the collection of maps of monastic sites be given a chronological guide and more clearly uniform arrangement.A rich collection of color plates at the end of each of the five volumes enhances the text with reproductions of significant monastic persons, places, and art. The reader cannot help but be impressed at the breadth of bibliographic resources the author brings to bear upon his subject. A broad and current mix of sources in English, French, Italian, and German, as well as Spanish, buttresses the author's narrative. Of particular note is the inclusion of an astounding array of secondary historical sources that are brought to bear upon the particular monastic topic or era being treated. This is very much a narrative account, at once highly personal and rich in historical detail, but uneven in quality. One would be hard pressed to imagine any other history that could incorporate monastic architecture and agriculture, hymnody and healing, liquors and libraries, an entire Benedictine world of arts and sciences. The author's intellectual compass seems as expansive as his chronological framework, but it often takes flight in a fashion that leaves the reader wishing for more coherence and less encyclopedic fact. Linage Conde displays a special bent for the life of the mind...