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602book reviews fully told tale offers many tidbits. In addition, its inclusion in liturgical readings ensured its survival, when so much else from that disturbed period has been lost, and one must willy-nilly turn to it for some information,however biased, on the crucial struggle against iconoclasm. Joseph A. Munitiz, SJ. Manresa House Birmingham, England The Medieval Abbey of Farfa: Target of Papal and Imperial Ambitions. By Mary Stroll. [Brill's Studies in Intellectual History, Volume 74.] (Leiden: Brill. 1997. Pp. xiii, 298.) Mary Stroll has produced a welcome addition to the growing number of local studies on church reform in Italy. Her book presents a detailed analysis of the investiture controversy and the expansion of papal power from the point of view of a large central Italian monastery, the abbey of Farfa, examining the fight between regnum and sacerdotium through the eyes of a third party that was directly involved in the events. Stroll succeeds well in showing the complexities of the political dimension of church reform, and her book demonstrates just how important third parties such as Farfa were in the battle between pope and emperor. Throughout the book the author follows closely primary source materials found in Farfa, and although at times the book reads a bit like a summary of Gregory of Catino, the monk at the abbey responsible for the bulk of the documents, Stroll is also careful to note the possible biases and motives of Gregory and to place the documents within a larger historical context. Moreover, Stroll always keeps in mind that the reform movement was never monolithic but conceived in disparate ways by different players at different moments . She shows not only how the priorities of reform changed over time, but also traces well the development and transformation of ideas that individuals such as Gregory VII and Henry IV underwent during their lifetimes. The book contains good maps of the region which make finding obscure places easy, but unfortunately no genealogies, which would have been helpful, particularly in the case of the Ottaviani and the Crescenti, whose members are frequently mentioned. Despite the cogent analysis of the abbey of Farfa's role in the investiture controversy , the book is not truly a local study since Farfa is never examined on its own terms, but exclusively as part of the papal-imperial conflict. Stroll never places the disputes between the abbey and the Ottaviani that she discusses at length within the context of the Sabina's local politics, but instead insists that they were a microcosm of the contest between pope and emperor. Moreover, the author focuses exclusively on the political dimension of reform, leaving out all discussion of religious life and clerical reform. Although the author states at the beginning of the book that her investigation started in response to the claims of other historians that Farfa represented a regressive form of Benedic- book reviews603 tinism in the twelfth century in contrast to other monasteries which instituted reforms, the book fails to address the issue of internal organization except to claim that Farfa never imposed the moral aspects of ecclesiastical reform. And since the author examines neither the religious life and organization inside the abbey nor the monks' role in local politics, some of her conclusions are a bit puzzling. What does the author mean when she says that religious life at Farfa was debased? And in what sense did Farfa lose its independence when it went under papal power? But perhaps these issues can be taken up in another study, and one can only thank Stroll for piquing our curiosity about a monastery rich in archives and central to the history of the Western Church. Valerie Ramseyer Wellesley College The Legend ofPopeJoan: In Search ofthe Truth. By Peter Stanford. (NewYork: Henry Holt and Company. 1998. Pp. Lx, 207. $26.00.) Joan refuses to go away. Allegedly, in 855, an English woman who had been educated at Fulda traveled toAthens, acquired a remarkable range of learning,went to Rome, rose high in everyone's estimation, and was elected pope. But he was a she and after two years,five months, and four days her deception was revealed when lapapessa unexpectedly gave...

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