Medieval Wall Paintings in English & Welsh Churches by Roger Rosewell (review)

REVIEWS 329 temps, autres mœurs, autre satire” (357), adds very little to what Michel Jeanneret said of the hermeneutical crisis in Rabelais in Le défi des signes (1994), hardly doing justice to the quality of the study, Bernd Renner has offered academia a rich work of erudition, highlighted by excellent character analyses and a humorous undercurrent of literary consumption, which is very deserving of its place in Rabelais studies as it reposes and recasts the persistent question of how to read and unravel this gargantuan enigma of a text. ROBERT J. HUDSON, French & Italian, Brigham Young University Roger Rosewell, Medieval Wall Paintings in English & Welsh Churches (Woodbridge, Suffolk: The Boydell Press 2008) 380 pp., 252 color ill. Roger Rosewell has produced a very thorough and well-documented volume which aims to describe all surviving medieval church paintings of significance in Britain. Although clearly intended for a general audience of enthusiasts, the Subject Index and Gazetteer provide fairly useful tools for scholars and specialists as well. It is especially encouraging to see that the publisher plans to offer an affordable paperback edition in order to allow Rosewell’s volume to reach a wide audience. More careful editing and perhaps closer collaboration with a medievalist would be desirable for a future edition: there are numerous mistakes or omissions in the historical chapters and some typos that detract from a volume that, overall, is a very useful and admirable contribution to the study and appreciation of medieval insular art. The book falls into two main sections: the first 224 pages offer six chapters of historical account, followed by indices and a Gazetteer. The first chapter details the history of wall paintings; Chapter 2, the subjects depicted; Chapter 3, the relationship between patrons and painters; Chapter 4, the general techniques and materials used by medieval wall painters (a particularly thorough and enjoyable section). Chapter 5 tackles broader interpretive issues, and Chapter 6 briefly summarizes the iconoclasm of the sixteenth century. Rosewell makes no assumptions about prior specialized knowledge of the reader, and although his explanations are understandable and helpful, his prose style at times is circumlocutory. There are several detailed problems with these chapters, including some easily avoidable typographical errors. A quotation from Chaucer’s “Pardoner’s Tale” has crustes blessed body instead of cristes (89)—and this in a section on blasphemy! A humorous error describes an image of two angels with thuribles as “censoring” a window. A parenthetical explanation of the use of the term “diapers” in describing wall paintings would have been useful for an American English non-specialist audience. The method of referring to figures is also frustratingly inconsistent: the text usually provides the figure number of an image discussed parenthetically (although sometimes in error), but at times no number is given. In the case of an especially interesting discussion of images with no figure reference, one then must look up the church name in the index to see if the author has included a photograph. The editors could have ensured that each discussion of an image actually included in the book contain the figure number parenthetically. Although the role of images in promoting orthodoxy is discussed briefly, there is REVIEWS 330 no mention of Lollard iconoclasm. Nor does a discussion of Nativity images refer to Bridget of Sweden’s contribution to popular iconography. Despite these flaws, most easily corrected in a second edition, Medieval Wall Paintings offers a real wealth of visual information, compiled by a clearly devoted author. The book’s organizational strongpoint is in its second half: the Gazetteer (225–306) and the Subject Guide (307–348). The Gazetteer’s geographical compilation is a fine aid for both traveler and researcher; the subject guide makes iconographic comparison among the images collected here extremely straightforward. Between these fine tools and the hundreds of beautiful images, the volume is a fine contribution to our understanding of medieval English visual culture. STEVEN ROZENSKI, JR., Harvard University Marina Rustow, Heresy and the Politics of Community: The Jews of the Fatimid Caliphate (Ithaca: Cornell University Press 2008) xxxv + 435 pp., ill. The dominant narrative of medieval Jewish history casts the Qaraites as sectarians who not only rejected rabbinic claims to exclusive...