Liborius: Brückenbauer Europas: Die mittelalterlichen Viten und Translationsberichte by Volker de Vry (review)

280BOOK REVIEWS If a major objective of this collaborative volume was to "unpack"—i.e., recover —medieval concepts of conversion (p. 3), I cannot see that that objective has been achieved. For none of the authors actually attempts to recover medieval ways of thinking about conversion. In the literature of which I am aware, conversion was a turning of the heart ablaze with insatiable passion, from evU to good. To "unpack" medieval concepts of conversion, modern investigators would need, at least, to admit into their narratives inner conflicts of raw emotion, morality iUuminated by consuming , inextinguishable fires, and consciences wounded, made wary, and toughened in warfare against seducer spirits. To reconstruct medieval ideas of conversion, investigators would need to take account of such counter-rational matters as these, almost entirely absent from Varieties ofConversion, as well as two disciplines equaUy absent: ecclesiology and theology. The supernatural— including mystery and miracle—would have to be aUowed at least cameo appearances. And somewhere, not necessarily on the fringe of the action, an epistemology postulating absolute Truth, would have to have a speaking role. Each article has its own considerable merits. The exceUence of the coUection as a whole does not Ue in exposing the dynamics of faith as they were conceived long ago. Instead, it consists in establishing conversion at the nucleus of an enduring mentality in western European culture, the rationale underlying both its never fulfiUed quest for redemption and its remorseless consecration of suffering, inflicted and endured, in the prodigal son's homeward journey. Karl F. Morrison Rutgers University—New Brunswick Liborius: Brückenbauer Europas: Die mittelalterlichen Viten und Translationsberichte . By Volker de Vry. (Paderborn: Ferdinand Schöningh. 1997. Pp. xvili,382.88DM.) To commemorate the aUeged 1600th anniversary of the death of Bishop (St.) Liborius of Le Mans, whose body was translated to Paderborn in 836, the bishop, chapter, and city of Paderborn underwrote the lavish pubUcation of Völker de Vry's 1996 dissertation from Albert-Ludwigs-Universität at Freiburg im Breisgau (directed by Hubert Mordek). The production values are extraordinary . The photographs, usuaUy of exceUent quality, include eighty-nine reproductions , many in fuU color, of pages of the major manuscripts and incunabula. This book is a bargain for students of paleography! There are also fifteen images of Liborius and his reliquaries and even eleven pictures of scholars who have examined the dossier. book reviews281 This is the first comprehensive study of Liborius materials to systematicaUy survey the manuscript evidence. After presenting what Uttle is known about the historical Liborius and his cult prior to the 836 translation to Paderborn, De Vry analyzes, in individual chapters, the parallel translation accounts. Then he edits the vita and translatio (Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina 4912-4913) written by the "Paderborn Anonymous" who was commissioned by Bishop Biso at some point between 888 and 909. De Vry inventories many minor late medieval Latin and vernacular Liborius texts. He offers a seventy-two-page descriptive catalog of "Manuscripta Liboriana" as weU as other useful indexes. He even itemizes his unsuccessful initiatives, specifying aU the libraries where he made mquiries, aU the places where he examined manuscripts, and all the research strategies he employed. How does this magnum opus advance our knowledge of the dossier of Liborius ? Everyone will welcome the critical edition of the "Paderborn Anonymous ," the most widely distributed version of the legend and the major source for the early history of the Diocese of Paderborn. The last complete edition was pubUshed by the BoUandists in 1727. De Vry's industry has added to the dossier a great many manuscript witnesses, albeit largely late medieval ones. Yet this book wiU not end all debates. Historians have been most interested in the materials related to the translation of the relics of Liborius to Paderhorn. Are the surviving translationes relatively independent parallel accounts? Or do they depend on a common literary ancestor? How do they relate to the Le Mans forgeries, a group of hagiographical and legal concoctions less famous than the roughly contemporary Pseudo-Isidorian decretals? The best survey of these problems in EngUsh is Walter Goffart's "The Literary Adventures of St. Liborius: A Postscript to the Le Mans Forgeries," in Analecta...