Angels and Earthly Creatures: Preaching, Performance, and Gender in the Later Middle Ages by Claire M. Waters (review)

REVIEWS 312 in the seventh century, images which Verkerk assumes to have been illustrated manuscripts. Chapter 6 focuses on evidence of codicological, liturgical, pictorial and stylistic links to Rome. Perhaps most convincing is the close similarity of the arcaded lists of chapters to the decorative layout of Italian canon tables. While the author admits that “format and figure style have no counterparts in surviving Roman manuscripts” (171), she finds iconographic links to the lost frescoes of San Paolo fuori le mura and, following André Grabar, the wall-paintings of the catacomb on the Via Latina. Overall, she maintains that the manuscript fits within the Roman “tradition of sophisticated pictorial exegesis” (170), and provides visual evidence for the codification of the Roman liturgy. While her argument is plausible, one can find a similar exegetical complexity in other Italian works, notably the near-contemporary mosaics in San Vitale in Ravenna, which (like Verkerks two Roman examples) also link the image of Moses on Sinai to Old Testament sacrifice scenes with Eucharistic symbolism. The final chapter suggests a clerical audience for the Ashburnham Pentateuch , based on iconographic evidence and marginal notations that reference the role of deacons. The manuscript, Verkerk affirms, is a “visual catechism … to teach clergy the proper answers to those difficult questions and to derive the right order of life from those stories” (189). Appropriate to such an educated audience, the images are not simply illustrations: in their interplay with text and tituli they create “a complicated theater of basic identification, of clarification, of complication, and even contradiction” (194). In so doing, Verkerk argues, they reframe Jewish history for a contemporary, clerical audience. At the end of the same chapter Verkerk suggests several fruitful topics for future study, including the unusual foregrounding of women and the manuscripts links to late antique art. Although her study does not address this issue, the prevalence of women—including a rare birthing scene—and of biblical narratives about women may complicate the question of intended audience. Throughout the book there are extensive and useful endnotes and a number of black-and-white illustrations. In places, however, key details in the illustrations , such as the “candle held by a pair of hands” (98) in fig. 21, can be difficult to see. Also, given the discussion of color in the manuscript, some color illustrations would be helpful. In sum, this book is a carefully argued and focused reappraisal of the Ashburnham Pentateuch’s origins, context and importance. Through a holistic examination of evidence, it both convincingly grounds the manuscript in early medieval culture, and heightens the readers appreciation of this richly innovative work. While the controversies surrounding the Ashburnham Pentateuch will no doubt continue, this book will be of great interest to historians of art, religion and early medieval culture. Like the manuscript of which she writes, Verkerks study offers thoughtful answers to difficult questions. LORI ESHLEMAN, Art History, Arizona State University Claire M. Waters, Angels and Earthly Creatures: Preaching, Performance, and Gender in the Later Middle Ages (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press 2004) 296 pp. In Angels and Earthly Creatures, Claire M. Waters provides scholars with an REVIEWS 313 insightful look at medieval preachers and preaching practices of the twelfth through fourteenth centuries. Waters’s text examines the liminal space of the preacher in medieval culture, as one who ultimately remains human, but also has the angelic role of preaching God’s message to the laity. Far from only concerning herself with male preachers, Waters attends to female preaching as well, stressing that writings against women preachers influence the role of the male preacher. She draws on medieval preaching handbooks, and in her later chapters uses Hildegard of Bingen, Catherine of Siena, and the Wife of Bath to illustrate female preaching. By focusing on both masculine and feminine preaching, she fully integrates two scholarly traditions and creates a fascinating book in the process. Chapter 1, “The Golden Chains of Citation,” focuses on changes in the notion of preacherly authority; it traces how “citational” practices—representing and refiguring earlier preaching models—inform and authorize preachers and how they are seen religious communities. Waters examines many preaching manuals, and discusses how such authoritative and citational practices create...