With Passion Relics and the Medieval Imagination, Cynthia Hahn makes a valuable contribution to historical and art-historical understandings of this special category of relic. Christ left no bodily remains on earth, and in this lacuna arose an enthusiasm for collecting, displaying, and venerating objects connected with his Passion, such as the True Cross, the nails, the Crown of Thorns, the sponge and the lance, among others, which permitted the faithful a tangible connection to the body of Christ. In this compact but wide-ranging study, Hahn sheds important light on the manifold roles—political, social, and liturgical—that these Passion relics played for those who owned, viewed, or otherwise interacted with them, from the earliest years of Christianity to the seventeenth century.As Hahn observes, Passion relics, unlike the bodily relics of the saints, frequently lack legends that detail their origin and history. They have disputed and mysterious histories; they appear suddenly and are subsequently dispersed, collected and displayed by secular rulers and ecclesiastical authorities. Hahn makes a convincing case for regarding Passion relics as “social phenomena”; they are objects with complex lives, which are revelatory of the political, religious, and artistic ambitions of those who possessed them. Moreover, the enthusiasm for Passion relics reflected and likely also stimulated changes in devotional practice itself, as late medieval piety focused increasingly on the suffering Christ—and suffering with Christ—as a focus for devotion.The book is divided into two chapters, mirroring the two Franklin D. Murphy lectures, delivered by Hahn in 2014, from which it emerged. The first chapter considers the True Cross, preeminent among the Passion relics. Beginning with the discovery of the True Cross by Helena, mother of the emperor Constantine, Hahn examines early artistic representations of the Cross and Crucifixion, which expose the dual nature of the Cross as both an instrument of torture and execution and a liturgical or devotional object that promises salvation through prayer. This paradox, Hahn argues, is “an essential characteristic of Passion relics,” and a theme to which she returns throughout the book (21). Having considered the early history of the True Cross relic, the remainder of the first chapter examines the dispersal of the True Cross across Europe, which largely took place during the Crusades from the eleventh century onward. As Hahn reminds us, the True Cross loomed large in the crusading imagination; the image of the cross was an integral part of not only crusaders’ insignia but also the liturgical rituals surrounding the blessing and departure of crusaders. To illustrate this enthusiasm, Hahn pays close attention to a category of reliquary termed Jerusalem crosses, produced in the city during the period of the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem (1099–1187). Hahn shows how these crosses, which were decorated with stones from important sites in the Holy Land, fulfilled needs ranging from the institutional to the deeply personal; a Jerusalem cross could be a prestigious gift from one ecclesiastical institution to another, but could also stimulate a private act of virtual pilgrimage in which the devotee imaginatively “traveled” to the sacred sites represented by the stones.After considering the True Cross alone in the first chapter, in the second chapter Hahn turns her attention to the remaining Passion relics, which include the Crown of Thorns, the nails used to fix Christ to the Cross, the Holy Lance with which his side was pierced at the Crucifixion, and so on. These objects became known collectively as the Arma Christi, or weapons of Christ, simultaneously instruments of torture and emblems of victory over death. These objects were understood to be particularly efficacious as a group; in line with theological concerns about the indivisibility of the body of Christ in the Eucharist, the Arma Christi represent “not only the means of division [of the body of Christ] but also the means of consolidation and consolation” (56). In her discussion of the evolution of the artistic tradition of the weapons of Christ, Hahn draws an intriguing comparison between Imperial Roman triumphal imagery—citing a relief on Trajan’s column depicting battle trophies of Dacian weapons—and the later Christian tradition of the Arma Christi. As well as considering these relics’ power as a collective, however, Hahn also examines individual relics in detail, particularly the Crown of Thorns and the Holy Lance, highlighting their role in consolidating their owners’ political and dynastic ambitions, through undertaking architectural and decorative programs to house these relics and through giving gifts of relics to individuals and institutions.One of the chief strengths of this book is its wide-ranging nature. Meticulously documented, Hahn uses an enormous range of primary and secondary texts in multiple languages, and objects from both Western and Orthodox traditions, to underpin her analysis. With this approach Hahn gives a sense of the complex and shifting histories of the Passion relics over centuries, as they moved around Europe and the Holy Land, reaching diverse audiences and accruing varied and overlapping meanings and uses. Yet the broad geographical and chronological scope of this study means that at times Hahn’s analysis jumps rapidly from one image or object to another, thus perhaps losing both a sense of how uses and perceptions of Passion relics changed over time, and the nuances and insights that result from detailed analysis. Indeed, the most effective parts of this study are Hahn’s sustained analyses of single objects, particularly her discussions of the Chapel of the Holy Cross at Karlštejn Castle, devised by Charles IV of Bohemia in the 1360s to house his collection of Passion relics, and the enameled Toulouse châsse made in the late twelfth century to contain a True Cross reliquary. Here, with a thorough elucidation of the unusual iconography of the châsse, Hahn skilfully shows how the reception of this relic was shaped by its role in the gift economy, its political and royal associations, and its specific geographical context in the Abbey of Saint-Sernin and the city of Toulouse.In her introduction, Hahn expresses a hope that her work will be accessible to students, advanced scholars, and the curious public. With this book, she has successfully achieved this goal; it is a rich and engaging contribution to the study of Passion relics, and medieval devotion to the Passion more broadly, which has much to offer newcomers to the field and scholars alike.