Holy Rulers and Blessed Princesses: Dynastic Cults in Medieval Central Europe. By Gabor Klaniczay. Translated by Eva Palmai. [Past and Present Publications.] (New York: Cambridge University Press. 2002. Pp. xviii, 490. $95.00.) Although the author of this book turns to his topic in a most original manner-the narrative is developed on a broad intellectual scale based on a thorough mastery of the material-his theme, the cult of women saints of royal families, reminds this reviewer of the ideas so densely laid down in the magisterial work by Alois Dempf, Sacrum Imperium (Berlin, 1929; 4th ed., 1973), of the arguments by Friedrich Heer, Europaische Geistesgeschichte, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart, 1965), and of the thoughts of Giles Constable formulated in his grandiose Reformation of the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 1996). These three scholars must have had quite an impact on him. author cleverly nourishes a trend of thought embedded in the western Latin circle of themes-be it the formation of the cult of male and female saints, including the descendants of Anglo-Saxon or Prankish royal families-so that upon the foundation he has thus established he may research the gradual development of the respect for devotion to and the evolving calendar of holidays of the saintly male and female scions of the Hungarian royal family, and he does it in a most carefully detailed manner. author carefully adheres to strict academic standards while pursuing his work on a solid scholarly base. It is evident from the approach he has taken that he has done his home work-he has for a longer period of time been working on and around his theme-in order to develop his thesis conscientiously. His published pre-studies in the recent past developed with meticulous detail,Rex Iustus: Le saint fondateur de la royaute chretienne, hongrois et l'Europe: conquete et integration, ed. Sandor Csernus and Klara Korompay (Paris and Szeged, 1999), pp. 357ff., or his The Cult of St. Ladislas in the 12-14 Centuries (in Hungarian), in A kozepkor szeretete [Historical studies in the Middle Ages], ed. Gabor Klaniczay and Balazs Nagy (Budapest, 1999), pp. 357ff.; further, The Cult of Miraculous Deeds of St. Ladislas in Our Chronicles (in Hungarian), Magyar Konyvszemle, 117 (2001), 393ff., studies that led to a positive debate and constructive criticism from Jozsef Gerics, Les problemes de sources de la representation de Saint-Ladislas dans la legende et dans la chronique (hongroise), Magyar Konyvszemle, 118 (2002), Iff. In his previous studies, Gerics had already dealt with the theme, as, for example, in his articles published in 1994 and 1974, which were reprinted in his Egyhaz, allam es gondolkodas Magyarorszagon a kozepkorban [Church, realm, and thought in medieval Hungary] (Budapest, 1995), pp. 137ff.,and 185ff., respectively. In this book, Klaniczay divides his discussion into six chapters. In these chapters he analyzes in microscopic detail the material he has chosen to work with. …