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from James Campbell’s The Anglo-Saxons. However, it is not an easy read: photo-graphic reproduction is not strong and production values are generally some-what low; sentences tend to be overly long and complex; there are numeroustypological weaknesses which make interpretation still harder and there areerrors of fact (e.g. p. 377, St David’s is not in Gwynedd; p. 525, the Bulgars didnot look east towards a Latin Church). Better proofreading would have madethis an even stronger work than it is currently; one hopes that a second editionwill rapidly improve upon the first, to provide better accessibility to a valuableand important historical thesis.University of Manchester NICK HIGHAM

Monastic Life in Anglo-Saxon England, c.600–900. By Sarah Foot. CambridgeUniversity Press. 2006. xvi + 398pp. £50.00.

This excellent study by Sarah Foot offers an in-depth examination of communalreligious life in England from the period of the initial conversion to the end ofthe first Viking age. I use the term ‘communal religious life’ advisedly, as (thetitle of the book notwithstanding) Foot, reiterating long-held views, arguesforcefully that translating the Latin ‘monasterium’ of the sources as ‘monastery’creates a misleading impression of enclosed, inwardly focused, contemplativeinstitutions that is wholly unsuited to the reality of the early English Church.Instead she uses ‘minster’ (Old English ‘mynster’) as a generic term for all religiouscommunities except bishops’ seats. Central to Foot’s work is her view that manymodern characterizations of early monasticism are flawed in two fundamentalways. First, she argues that the rhetoric of tenth-century monastic reformers,together with biases in Bede’s Historia Ecclesiastica, have tended to produce apicture of the seventh and eighth centuries as a golden age in the history of theEnglish Church, followed by a marked decline in the ninth and early tenthcenturies. This vision, she maintains, is not entirely supported by a closer exam-ination and analysis of all the extant sources. Secondly, she argues that muchmodern scholarship has a too binary view of the early Church, seeing a polariza-tion between active ‘minsters’ engaged in missionary and pastoral work, andenclosed, contemplative ‘monasteries’. Foot argues that, despite a very greatdiversity of practice, all minsters were involved to some degree in both areas.

The text is sensibly and systematically structured. Following two introductorychapters the volume is divided into two parts. The first of these is inwardlyfocused and examines life within early Anglo-Saxon religious communities.The second part considers the relations minsters had with the outside world.Virtually every conceivable aspect of monastic life is examined, from the initialfoundation of the houses, their locations and the nature of their buildings, tosuch things as the variety of rules followed, prayer, worship and the rhythms ofthe monastic day, work, education and leisure, monastic affinities and pastoralwork. It is Foot’s engagement with the ‘minster hypothesis’, however, that islikely to be the subject of most interest to specialists, initially at least. This is amodel of the provision of pastoral care for the laity in mid- and late-SaxonEngland. Specifically, the minster hypothesis posits the existence of a coherentsystem of ‘mother churches’: minsters with large parochiae attached to them.During the tenth, eleventh and twelfth centuries, it suggests, these large territoriesfragmented into the parish system with which we are familiar. The debate

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surrounding this model was at its height in the mid-1990s and did, as Foot says,produce a rather binary vision of Anglo-Saxon religious houses. Her detailedexamination of the sources reveals a rather different, less tidy and more compli-cated picture, in which all minsters were involved in both active ministry andcontemplative life. Moreover, she criticizes the minster hypothesis for puttingtoo much emphasis on institutions, arguing, like Catherine Cubitt, that pastoralresponsibilities devolved upon individuals, not the institutions in which theywere domiciled.

The question of how the Anglo-Saxon Church provided pastoral care for thelaity, and indeed the amount it was able to supply, remain major gaps in ourknowledge. Given the nature of the sources, these issues may always be impon-derables, and Foot is perhaps wise in not attempting to answer them. Thearguments she does make with reference to the minster hypothesis are cogentand persuasive, but her characterization of the conventional view is perhaps alittle overstated. Few scholars would now adhere to the model in its most basicform, and most would probably allow a fair amount of ad hoc diversity in theearly English Church. The real strengths of this outstanding work lie in thescope, breadth and depth of its coverage, together with the solidness of Foot’sscholarship. Skilfully handling a wide variety of source material, she closelyscrutinizes virtually all aspects of monastic life, and the book presents a bal-anced, in-depth and comprehensive picture of early English minsters and theirrole in society. Wisely avoiding the temptation to build general models, Footinstead concentrates on the wide range of practices revealed by the sources.Indeed, central to her work is the notion that the early English Church wascharacterized by diversity. Though displaying formidable scholarship the bookis accessibly written and will not appeal only to experts; non-specialists will findit both approachable and useful. In an otherwise so full study it is somewhatdisappointing that comparatively little is said about the place of minsters insecular patronage networks, and virtually nothing about their role in the widerpower politics of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms. While these issues have been exam-ined by other scholars, and indeed sometimes have been given rather too muchprominence, a fuller discussion here might have helped round off her work. Thisminor criticism aside, Professor Foot has produced a truly outstanding book,which will undoubtedly become a standard text on the subject.Manchester Metropolitan University DAMIAN TYLER

Writing Medieval Biography 750–1250. Essays in Honour of Frank Barlow.Edited by David Bates, Julia Crick and Sarah Hamilton. Boydell & Brewer. 2006.xiii + 262pp. £60.00.

This collection brings together an impressive roster of leading scholars tocelebrate the contribution of Frank Barlow to the modern understanding of themiddle ages. In a career spanning almost seventy years, Barlow stood out notonly for his editing of sources, such as the letters of Arnulf of Lisieux (1939) orthe Vita of St Edward the Confessor (1962), but also for a series of biographiesof Edward the Confessor (1970), William Rufus (1983) and Thomas Becket(1986) that to this day set the standard for writing the lives of medieval men andwomen. That this is by no means a straightforward undertaking is a recurrenttheme in the volume under review.