A of Priests: Singing the Civic and Episcopal Hagiography of Medieval Liege. By Catherine Saucier. (Eastman Studies in Music, vol. 108.) Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2014. [xiv, 299 p. ISBN 9781580464802. $75.] Music examples, figures, tables, appendix, bibliography, index. Catherine Saucier's A of represents the culmination of more than decade of careful archival and analytical work about the music and culture of Liege (in modern-day Belgium) between the tenth and sixteenth centuries. This is an important study fills lacuna in medieval musicology, complementing other book-length studies about important musical centers in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. This research was originally presented in Saucier's 2005 dissertation (Sacred Music and Musicians at the Cathedral and Collegiate Churches of Liege, 1330-1500 [Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 2005]); this book represents maturing of her earlier thought and the refreshing of older material into five-chapter book. In A of Priests, Saucier demonstrates how music, hagiography, and identity were intimately intertwined in Liege during the late Middle Ages. Liege is has history of establishing the music-, text-, and image-rich Feasts of the Holy Trinity and Corpus Christi, which were founded in the tenth and thirteenth centuries respectively. Saucier demonstrates the authority and power of Liege as creator of devotional practice continued into the sixteenth century through Offices for an episcopal trio of Saints Theodard, Lambert, and Hubert (p. 94), and through polyphonic motet by Johannes Brassart in honor of the accomplishments of Bishop Notger, tenth-century bishop who changed the face of the through various projects. The evidence presented in these chapters establishes the nexus of music and power in Liege was located partly in the physical space of the cathedral and collegiate churches, where venerations were made. Most of the power, however, resided in the pens of the clerics, who drew on older hagiographic texts to create musical devotions extol the merits of the saints and the city. Indeed, the success of clerics in Liege leads Saucier to argue boldly that sacred music was the most persuasive and versatile medium by which the secular clergy of medieval Liege promoted the holy status of their city (p. 3). This argument is supported throughout the text through wealth of hagiographic material with explicit connections to Liege's Episcopal history, which is then taken up in musical venerations. The introduction is brief, but does discuss scope and methodology, establishing this study of Liege as an interdisciplinary project draws on variety of historical, hagiographic, visual, and liturgical sources. Saucier provides important details link the ecclesiastical history of Liege and liturgical music to the promotion of the city's prestige. Liege was home to large number of churches, monasteries, and convents as well as an Episcopal seat. It was full of men and women who dedicated their lives to singing the Mass and the Office, but as cathedral city, its musical practices also reflected the needs of bishopric seat. Many of the clerics dedicated their lives to disseminating the diocesan liturgy. For their labors, Liege became known as Paradise of Priests (p. 4), rich in scholastic learning and committed to augmenting the calendar of saints with feast days. The work of adding Offices and Masses to the local rite was, as Saucier notes, a familiar platform from which to voice ideals (p. 7). New Offices, Masses, and later polyphonic works served to retell saints' lives in song then spread across the diocese and beyond. With this framework established, Saucier concludes with her two-fold objectives for this book: (1) to clarify and share new information about Liege as musical center, and (2) to begin discussion about how to define civic space in relation to textual, musical, and artistic media. …