Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Coexistence in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (review)

Reviews 251 Wolfthal, Diane, ed., Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Coexistence in the Middle Ages and Renaissance (Arizona Studies in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 4), Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Tempe, Arizona, Turnhout, Brepols, 2000; board; pp. xxviii, 265; illustrated; R.R.P. EUR50.00; ISBN 2503509045. 'Not only thou must seek for peace, but also thou must pursue it, run after i andfindall the means possible to catch it'. So declared the prebendary ofBristol, Roger Edgeworth, in 1557. Almost 450 years later, the editor and contributors to Peace and Negotiation: Strategies for Coexistence in the Middle Ages and Renaissance have taken Edgeworth's advice to heart in the production of a wideranging and erudite collection of essays on peace in the pre-modern world. A useful index, neat summaries of the essays and notes on the contributors make this a polished collection from Brepols, while the illustrations are helpful, too. A clear introduction spells out the aims of the collection: to uncover just what peace meant to medieval and Renaissance people; to explore notions of peace outside the traditional realm of 'intellectual' (read theological and philosophical) history; and to show that medieval and Renaissance studies can contribute to the genealogy of peace studies more broadly. The editor, Diane Wolfthal, immediately raises some interesting questions, primarily relating to definitions of peace. A n encompassing understanding of what peace means is proffered. It is more than the absence of war, according to Wolfthal; rather, peace is adaptable according to time and place, and might generally be understood as the resolution of conflict. In this sense, peace is a dynamic and active process, involving negotiation, individual responsibility and the discursive construction ofspatial boundaries for its expression. W h e n the reader turns to the essays, however, the synonymity of peace, negotiation, 'strategies for coexistence', resolution and refusal to engage in confrontation becomes problematic, and the pertinent questions raised in the introduction are not always effectively teased out. Partly this is a result of the enormous chronological period covered by the 13 essays, which begin with Michael Herren's exploration of St Patrick's role in the Christianising of Ireland and end with Noah Efron's essay on the relationships between Christian and Jewish householders in seventeenth-century Prague. Although the range of essays is certainly interesting, the reader is sometimes left wondering what precisely the c o m m o n threads are which bind the collection together. It seems at times that the broad definition of peace delineated in the introduction works against a 252 Reviews really cohesive collection, despiterightlyacknowledging the variety of meanings suggested by the term. More success is evident in the essays which directly address meanings and manifestations of peace in specific contexts. In particular, three essays on Anglo-Saxon England by Ryan Lavelle, John Edward D a m o n and Jonathan Wilcox reveal a complex picture of peace and animosity in Anglo-Saxon responses to the Vikings, where it is clear that 'peaceful resolution of conflict depended on a shared set of values' (p. 76). Ben Lowe's essay on Henry VIII provides a compelling contrast between Catholic justification of violence committed in the name of the 'correct' higher authority and Protestant emphasis on the role of the individual conscience in actions of war and peace. Some interesting points are raised in relation to gendering peace: Sheila ffoliott's essay on images of peace in royal marriage, Lori Eshelman's reading of the representation of Viking w o m e n on the memorial stones of Gotland and Kirsten Christensen's exploration of the correspondence between a fourteenth-century Dominican nun and a preacher all demonstrate the ways in which w o m e n were used in and acted in the construction of particular types of peace. Yet the reader continues to wonder about the slippery theme of this collection. A n essay on monastic portal sculpture by Carol Stamatis Pendergast is excellent in contrasting cultural symbols of peace and violence, but seems out ofplace in a group ofessay on topics as varied as reconciliationritualsfor apostates from the Coptic orthodox church (by L. S. B. MacCoull), the state ofArmenian/ Georgian...