REVIEWS 248 Hungarian ruling class as a whole toward their past. The fifth chapter discusses a completely different model of holiness: the princesses and queens of the Hungarian ruling dynasty, starting with Elizabeth, daughter of Andrew II of Hungary and wife of Louis IV of Thuringia, and their imitators (often blood relatives) in the neighbor dynasties of the Piasts (in Poland and Silesia) and the Premysls (in Bohemia) or the German princely families of the thirteenth century. Klaniczay finds the reason behind the immediate success of these cults in their importance for the aggrandizement of the dynasties to which they belonged (209). He sees this in the elaboration, by the Hungarian ruling houses, of the notion of “hereditary sanctity” (228), and in the conscious emulation of the older, Anglo-Saxon, Bohemian, and Hungarian models (233). Klaniczay does not neglect the gender implications of the holy princesses’ sainthood, which fits into the male prejudice that “woman’s nature” consists of an unpredictable wavering between extremes (199), and discusses the character of the princesses’ chastity and renunciation in light of the contemporary phenomenon of the Beguines in the Low Countries. Yet, using an approach similar to Le Goff’s in his study of St. Louis, the author draws attention specifically to the general movement, throughout the thirteenth century, among religious orders and the laity to bring closer together the “heavenly” court and world authority (244). The last chapter is dedicated to the construction of the memory of the Central European “holy rulers and blessed princesses.” Klaniczay sees as essential promoters of the saintly cults the successful dynasties of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, especially the in Naples and, after 1301, Hungary and Bohemia. Manipulation of hagiographic material; pilgrimages by kings and queens around Europe and the establishment of churches and abbeys in honor of ancestors; recultivation of forgotten traditions; and generous artistic patronage of the arts: all were part of a conscious policy of appropriation, by a new dynasty, of the prestige and spiritual heritage of their predecessors. This led to the presumable establishment of a continuity between all royal saints of the Latin West. In the end, however, this appropriation would, in Klaniczay’s view, erase the dynastic essence of the saints’ cults and transform the holy rulers into national saints who could be used against the present monarch himself (389 ff.) The abundance of facts, the extensive case studies of objects of art or hagiographical traditions, as well as the rich illustrative material make Klaniczay ’s monograph a substantial contribution to the history of Christian saints and of medieval European political ideology. In addition to its scholarly merits, the complete index, the twelve genealogical tables, the files of the hagiographical tradition and canonization “files” of the five most important Hungarian saints, the ninety-one illustrations, and the extensive bibliography make the book an essential reference tool for any student of the history of Central Europe or the field of royal sainthood. BORIS TODOROV, History, UCLA Adam J. Kosto, Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia: Power, Order and the Written Word, 1000–1200 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001) 366 pp. In his first monograph, Making Agreements in Medieval Catalonia, Adam REVIEWS 249 Kosto approaches the subject of medieval social and political transformation from a unique perspective. By focusing on a single type of document, the convenientia , Kosto uses text, that is, he investigates the development, use and evolution of a specific textual format, as a lens through which to view medieval society. The convenientia, written agreements which began with the phrase “hec est convenientia” were made for a variety of purposes: to settle disputes, to establish terms of castle or land tenure, and to create bonds of fidelity. Approximately 1000 convenientia from the eleventh and twelfth centuries originated in Catalonia and survive within the crown and provincial archives in which Kosto conducted his research (3). This rich archival survival corresponds with the period of shifting political structures and increasing authority of the counts of Barcelona. While acknowledging that regional studies should not automatically be presented as proof of general European trends, since they “run the risk of isolating an area under consideration from its wider context”(4), Kosto examines the convenientia of...