Vox Mystica: Essays on Medieval Mysticism in Honor of Professor Valerie M. Lagorio ed. by Anne Clark Bartlett, et al. (review)

REVIEWS (p. 108). More understandably but no less problematically, she becomes so concerned with demonstrating a topical connection that she miscon­ strues the text, ignoring important textual clues that render the passage more complex and intriguing than she allows. Admittedly, Astell offers the occasional reminder that her author was not "creating a new story that corresponded exactly to the {referenced} events" (p. 150), but to say that they unequivocally represent the author's intention defies much of the recent, hard-won theoretical sophistication in medieval studies. Bearing this caveat in mind, scholars can expect Astell's book to illumi­ nate numerous patterns of association and topical clues hitherto over­ looked in these richly laden texts. CANDACE BARRINGTON Iona College ANNE CLARK BARTLETT, with THOMAS H. BESTUL, JANET GOEBEL, and WILLIAM F. POLLARD, eds. Vox Mystica: Essays on Medieval Mys­ ticism in Honor of Professor Valerie M. Lagorio. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1995. Pp. xiv, 235. $81.00. This collection is divided into four main sections. In the first, "Meth­ ods," Rosemary Drage Hale writes on sensory perception and memory in works by medieval German mystics;John Hirsh examines the literary treatment of encounters with the supernatural in three Middle English romances, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Havelok, and Lay le Freine; Alexandra Barratt provides a critical survey of editions, translations, and versions of Julian of Norwich's Revelations; and Frank Tobin discusses the possible influence of Augustine's theory of visions on Mechtild of Magdeburg's DasfliefJende Licht der Gottheit. In the second section, "Prac­ tices," Ritamary Bradley argues that the monastic Latin vita of Beatrice of Nazareth is an unreliable witness to the nature of her spirituality, imposing an essentially antifeminist stereotype of the "holy woman" not substantiated by Beatrice's own writing; Robert Boenig examines the relationship of Augustine'sjubilus to Rolle's canor; Edwin L. Conner sug­ gests Aelred of Rievaulx's De spirituali amicitia as a source of the Cloud of Unknowing; Beverly Boyd finds "a strain of mysticism" expressed through the translated prayers in Chaucer's works; Elizabeth Psakis 451 STUDIES IN THE AGE OF CHAUCER Armstrong cogently compares the ideal of "womenly men" in Thomas a Kempis with that of "manly women" in Teresa of Avila; and Mary E. Giles draws parallels between the "ecstatic theatre" of Sor Marfa of Santo Domingo-a fifteenth-century Spanish mystic whose ecstasies some­ times involved dramatic performance-and the "holy theatre" of Jerzy Grotowski and some other modern directors. In the third section, "Communities," Anne Clark Bartlett explores interestingly the compli­ cations of spiritual friendship between the sexes in late medieval En­ gland; Ann M. Hutchison narrates the misadventures of three English Brigittine nuns in Elizabeth's reign; and Gertrud Jaron Lewis discusses the place of music and dancing in the fourteenth-century German Dom­ inican "Sister-Books." In the fourth section, "Texts," Margot King trans­ lates three letters on Christ as lover from Mechthild of Hackeborn's Book ofSpecial Grace, bk. 4, ch. 59; Stephen E. Hayes edits for the first time "Of Three Workings in Man's Soul," a short Middle English prose medi­ tation on the Annunciation; and James Hogg offers a detailed study of the Middle Low German version of St. Birgitta's Revelationes published in Lubeck in 1496, an adaptation designed for readers less concerned with mysticism than with practical guidance on leading the Christian life. Unlike most Festschriften, this collection works as a coherent whole, firmly focused on medieval European mysticism; the only exception, Hutchison's study of the Elizabethan "Catholic underground," provides a relevant, and at times moving, postscript to the medieval material. Certain themes recur in more than one article: the influence of Au­ gustine of Hippo on later mystical writings, the place of spiritual friend­ ship in the religious life, and the nature and (at times) subversion of medieval gender stereotypes. The majority of the articles are substantial, interesting, and useful, and some are of notably high quality; it would be invidious to list names, but (to take a single example) Barratt's unpre­ tentious and workmanlike survey of the tradition of Julian's Revelations should be required reading for anyone approaching the study of Julian for...