The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles by Ronald C. Finucane (review)

BOOK REVIEWS747 religious houses, it should be consulted by all who encounter the Canons Regular and Order of the Holy Sepulchre in their studies. LawrenceJ. McCrank Davenport College Grand Rapids, Michigan The Rescue of the Innocents: Endangered Children in Medieval Miracles. By Ronald C. Finucane. (NewYork: St. Martin's Press. 1997. Pp. xii, 268. $49.95.) In recent years, historians have discovered the value of medieval miracle collections as a rich source for the study of such themes as family structure, gender relations, folk medicine, and popular religion. Following the introduction of papal canonization in the twelfth century, legal and medical standards were applied to the recording and verification ofthe rniracle, which was often based on the eyewitness testimony of those persons who had experienced or participated in a miraculous event. Such detailed testimony permits a microhistorical reconstruction of the daily concerns and mental world not only of the clergy and nobility, but also of the unlettered classes. In this volume, Ronald Finucane skillfully examines over six hundred miracles reported in eight major collections (some still in manuscript form) from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, including those of Thomas Becket, Louis of Toulouse, Thomas Cantilupe, Dorothy of Montau, King Henry VI, Chiara of Montefalco, Nicholas ofTolentino, and Pope Urban V He focuses particularly on childbirth and the complications of neonatal existence,pregnancy, illnesses and accidents involving children. The expressions of grief and parental love, the concern to revive an injured or fatally ill child voiced in these sources, and the varied cultic practices and healing techniques employed to ensure the safety of the young, provide graphic documentary illustration of those attitudes and practices found in contemporary medical, philosophical, theological, literary, and hagiographical sources. Aries's claim that the Middle Ages treated its young with brutality or indifference is finally laid to rest. This work allows us to vicariously experience the affectional relationships within the family dealt with by Boswell, Bennett, Hanawalt, Herlihy and others. Finucane's work provides firm statistical evidence for many ofthe conditions of childhood: the greater propensity of boys to accidents; the greater stress on saving endangered boys rather than girls by a ratio of about seventy to thirty; the considerable involvement of extended kinfolk in southern Europe in the care of children; the place of children at home and in the workplace; the prevalence of childhood disease in southern Europe and accidents in the north as causes of child mortality. These miracles provide us with valuable information concerning the many diseases and their symptoms to which children were prone, and the place of mothers, fathers, family, physicians, midwives, nurses, 748BOOK REVIEWS and priests in the care of the young. An excellent illustration of many of Finucane 's conclusions is provided by a full translation of the drowning and revival of Joanna of Marden found in the canonization record of Thomas Cantilupe, probably the best documented such report. In sum, this volume represents a good example of the high demands of meticulous scholarship, combined with the engrossing narration of the kind of local history which can bring us closer to the traumas and joys of medieval peasant society. Michael Goodich University ofHaifa Die Register Innocenz' III. 7. Band: 7. Pontifikatsjahr, 1204/1205. Texte und Indices. Edition supervised by Othmar Hageneder. Edited by Andrea Sommerlechner and Herwig Weigl, together with Christoph Egger and Rainer Muraurer. (Vienna: Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften. 1997. Pp. lxvii,495. 1590,00 öS paperback.) With the appearance of the volume under review this definitive editorial project presents the enregistered correspondence for an interesting chronological slice in the history of Innocent ILTs pontificate. Excepting three missives from September, 1203, the letters range between late February, 1204, and mid-February , 1205. All in all, 231 registered letters and documents are presented here with detailed commentary. The edited portion of the register was transcribed from folios 134-203 of Cod. Reg. Vat. 5. In their introduction to the manuscript (pp. vii-xvi) the editors present an exhaustive survey of codicological and paleographical information. A short list of the topics includes the average size and number of lines of written text per sheet, the various numberings of the folios and letters, the system of rubrication...