Medieval English devotional culture, along with the texts that supported it, has been the subject of ever more (and ever more sophisticated) studies over the last three decades. Thanks in large part to the critics who contribute to this Companion, the study of medieval English literature has taken a “religious turn.” The field is, in some ways, peculiar: There are many articles but few monographs, and while the constant stream of texts edited in the Exeter and Salzburg series witness to what W. A. Pantin called the “vast sea” of late medieval English religious literature, critics have by and large focused on but a few texts. The claims of visionary writers, read as reporting their unmediated dalliances with the divine, have until very recently discouraged extensive attempts at source criticism—even the historicizing of these texts has only been done slowly and with many caveats and apparent reservations.There are many reasons, therefore, to welcome a book like The Cambridge Companion to Medieval English Mysticism. While some of its chapters are considerably stronger than others, at its best this Companion presents a canny understanding of the status quaestionis of its subject, and its authors indicate a variety of directions in which future work should tend. The major argument of the Companion, reiterated in several chapters, is the need to identify and explore continuities and connections between the writings of the Middle English mystics and the larger religious and cultural history of late medieval England. As Vincent Gillespie writes in the preface (with his usual eloquence), “The attractive if previously somewhat remote archipelago known as ‘the Middle English mystics’ … has been revealed to be connected to the mainland of medieval religious writing and culture at multiple points” (xii). The mapping of these connections in the Companion is timely and sensitive, and, in several cases, the essays collected here make a substantial contribution to the field.After Gillespie's preface and a thirteen-page “Chronology” (a regular feature of recent Cambridge Companions and, in almost all cases, of limited value), Nicholas Watson presents an introduction that both explains the history of the study of mystical texts in the modern academy and offers a suggestion for a new approach to such literature. Watson describes the movement of these texts from the Counter-Reformation invention of “mystical theology” to early twentieth-century “spirituality studies” and thence to departments of English literature, and he thus helpfully contextualizes the creation of various book series and periodicals, including The Medieval Mystical Tradition in England and the present journal, even as he introduces the novice reader to the major resources of the field. After succinct sections on the antique origins of the practice of contemplation and the important place of affectivity in medieval contemplative texts, Watson offers the rubric of otium as a potentially fruitful way to consider medieval devotional writing. Otium, the busy retirement of the philosophers, presents the opportunity to connect the works of the contemplatives with other medieval and postmedieval authors: otium is perhaps, most generally, what an anchoress has in common with a university theologian—or even, Watson suggests, with poets like Traherne and Wordsworth. As we will see, at least the first of these commonalities is explored in several of the following chapters.The remaining chapters of this Companion come in pairs: Five periods are delineated, and each is the subject of one chapter on “culture and history” and another on “texts.” This structure is at times very useful, since it forces the historical contextualization that is one of the primary goals of the Companion. Yet it also results in a certain degree of repetition between chapters.The first pairing addresses the period circa 1080–1215, with the historical-contextual chapter by Brian Patrick McGuire and the chapter on texts by Henrietta Leyser. McGuire views twelfth-century religious history primarily through the twin lenses of Anselm of Canterbury (especially as presented by Richard Southern) and Bernard of Clairvaux (especially as presented by Jean Leclercq). For McGuire, twelfth-century mysticism is, accurately enough, a monastic affair, but this emphasis leads to an unfortunately minimal discussion of contemporary developments within the cathedral schools—note, for example, that the founder of the Carthusian Order, Bruno of Cologne, was a renowned teacher of the liberal arts at Rheims for two decades before he retreated from the world. McGuire goes on to provide brief but useful introductions to the Carthusians and other new Orders of the twelfth century, the Cistercians and the Victorines, framed primarily in terms of the influential texts on contemplation produced by members of these Orders. Throughout, McGuire's focus is largely textual, and he thus leaves little fresh ground to be covered by Leyser. Indeed, the only authors unaddressed by McGuire who receive substantial treatment by Leyser are Goscelin of St. Bertin, Godric of Finchale, the anonymous Nun of Barking, and Clemence of Barking. The repetition between this chapter and McGuire's is especially clear on the two occasions when Leyser quotes from McGuire's chapter (52 and 55). Leyser dwells on the importance of hagiography, and she usefully notes the prominence of Marian piety in twelfth-century England: Leyser's example for such Marianism is the commentary on the Song of Songs by Honorius Augustodunensis, to which could be added William of Newburgh's late twelfth-century Marian commentary on the same book (ed. John C. Gorman [Fribourg, 1960]).Next come two chapters on the period from the Fourth Lateran Council (1215) to the death of Richard Rolle (1349). Alastair Minnis provides the historical contextualization, and his discussion is, at least at first, structured by the various canons of Lateran IV. Minnis notes the council's emphasis on the importance of preaching and the variety of artes praedicandi that were published in this period, its emphasis on the need to provide for the education of the clergy, and its emphasis on pastoral care and the great number of new confessional and penitential manuals that supported such work. The content and strategies of these texts, Minnis notes, would seem to overlap with and influence the more clearly contemplative literature of this and later periods. Throughout, Minnis's account is informed by writings produced within the Universities of Oxford and, later, Cambridge—and this, Minnis insists, is both intentional and highly relevant to the subject of the Companion. Noting various scholastic classifications of theology as an affective pursuit, Minnis writes, “The simplistic notion that … a university training in theology was in some fundamental way antithetical to the contemplative life, is not to be entertained” (76). In the various continuities that he traces between university texts and wider religious writings and practices, Minnis looks forward to one direction that future studies should take.Denis Renevey then offers a discussion of contemplative texts produced from 1215 to 1349, focused primarily on anchoritic literature and the writing of Richard Rolle. Between larger sections on these subjects come two short accounts of the Love Rune of Thomas of Hales and Li Rossignos of John Howden. Renevey does well to show continuity with earlier texts—especially those featuring a Cistercian brand of affectivity and hagiography as a devotional medium—while also suggesting how the thirteenth-century intellectual and religious priorities discussed by Minnis pushed these recognizable forms in new directions. Of particular note is Renevey's careful discussion of the different ways in which the English anchoritic texts, originally aimed at a female audience, were nevertheless made to be of devotional utility to readers of either gender. It is unfortunate, however, that Renevey is very selective in the texts he discusses, which represent “only a small fraction of the enormous output of religious texts written during [this] period” (109). The implication would seem to be that these works are representative, but they are also some of the most familiar.The third chronological range is 1349–1412, and the historical discussion of this period is provided by Jeremy Catto. Minnis's interest in the relationship between academic and contemplative works finds an exponent in Catto, whose general thesis would appear to be that “the common experience” of the prominent writers of this period “was the university world and its professional training” (127). After 1349, English theologians became increasingly “involved in the service of church and government,” i.e., they wrote with careerist but also applied, pastoral ends in mind. (Hence, for example, William Woodford's postils on Matt. 1–5 are framed as a manual for confessors.) One major consequence of this shift “was the overflow of university debates … into the public domain, making the fourteenth century a period of … violent religious controversy” (116–17). Of course, Wyclif is the central figure in many of these debates, but Wycliffite literature is, according to Catto, of limited significance for the student of contemplative texts: “Wyclif … urged a form of interior independence on the laity quite different from the self-awareness engendered by contemplation…. Lollard literature, like the works of Wyclif himself, carried no hint of a devotional disposition” (119–20). This is a powerful challenge: Are there continuities to be found between the devotional literature of, for example, Hilton and the writings of Wyclif? Regardless of the answer, Catto provides a clearly written introduction to the theological and historical concerns of the period while also indicating the most pressing questions currently faced by the field.Roger Ellis and Samuel Fanous then offer an account of the major Middle English contemplative works of the period described by Catto. As in Renevey's chapter, here, too, the discussion focuses on familiar writers—Julian of Norwich, the Cloud author, and Walter Hilton—with shorter sections on a limited number of less well-known texts. Ellis and Fanous begin by reinforcing the importance of didactic works or pastoralia, and they then explore the affectivity of the Middle English religious lyrics in the school of Rolle. After clear summary introductions to the three major contemplative writers of the period, the chapter concludes with two works that, Ellis and Fanous say, “seek to limit the exercise of the contemplative option,” i.e., The Chastising of God's Children and Nicholas Love's Mirror of the Blessed Life of Jesus Christ (153). Yet it seems odd to suggest that such widely read works attempted to curtail devotional enthusiasm. Similarly problematic is the notion that the “homely” imagery of the Mirror “infantilizes the devout” reader (157), when nothing of the sort is suggested concerning the “homely” imagery of Julian's Showings (cf. ed. Colledge and Walsh [Toronto, 1978], 296). While Ellis and Fanous do helpfully point to further works not included in their discussion, such as The Seven Points of True Wisdom (158), their primary bibliography is in other ways frustratingly limited: The only work of Hilton's that they discuss, for example, is the Scale of Perfection, while his Latin writings get no mention at all.Vincent Gillespie introduces the history of the next period, 1412–1534, focusing especially on the reforms of the English Church following the Councils of Pisa and Constance. This rich and lucidly written chapter would thus seem to serve as something of a précis of the new collection of essays, After Arundel, co-edited by Gillespie and Kantik Ghosh (Turnhout, 2011). Throughout his discussion, Gillespie points the reader toward a variety of poorly known authors and translators, focusing largely on the manuscript and print contexts in which their works circulated. Gillespie would appear to see the trends of this period epitomized in the foundation and subsequent influence of the Carthusian house of Sheen and the Brigittine house of Syon. While Gillespie questions the notion that the Carthusians were active disseminators of texts to the laity (170; cf. Catto on 126), he nevertheless sees a clear flow of writings from Sheen to Syon and thence to a wider readership. Sheen and Syon were the paragons of enclosed contemplative religion in this period, and they inspired not other monastic houses but a variety of institutions, such as guilds and chantries, which allowed the mercantile classes of (especially) London to participate to some degree in their devotional practices. The Church in this period was vigilant in guarding against heresy, but the texts cited by Gillespie were able to explore “the complex negotiations necessary between revelatory enlightenment and obedience to the Church” (184).The themes of Gillespie's chapter are continued in Barry Windeatt's contribution on devotional texts. Windeatt begins with the commonplace notion that the English fifteenth century “was a time of intellectual and spiritual repression, regulation, and censorship” (195), an idea that he sets out to refute, demonstrating instead how vibrant the devotional culture of this period truly was. Perhaps because he works with this goal in mind, Windeatt's is a particularly satisfying chapter: Windeatt shows his easy familiarity with a vast range of material—print and manuscript, edited and unedited—and thus provides the would-be student of this field with an abundance of possible avenues for further research. His discussion includes translations of Continental material (especially the writings of Catherine of Siena, Bridget of Sweden, and Mechtild of Hackeborn), Beguine hagiographies, compilations of earlier English contemplative texts, new devotional works, and new visionary texts in both Latin and English. The sheer number of texts he discusses, with eloquence and clarity, make this an exciting and extremely rewarding chapter.The final period addressed by this Companion ranges from 1534 through the 1550s, with the chapter on historical and cultural contexts provided by James Carley and Ann Hutchison. Carley and Hutchison offer a lucid guide to the charged religious and political debates of Henrician, Marian, and early Elizabethan England. Their chapter is richly annotated, drawing on, and pointing the reader toward, much of the most recent research on the period. Carley and Hutchison devote their attention mostly to the fate of the monasteries, and especially the monks' contemplative and devotional books, and they indicate the continued interest in fourteenth-century works on the part of both monastic and lay readers. Then follows a short chapter by James Simpson on the texts of this period. Yet, while Simpson begins by noting that the recusant communities on the Continent “and some very isolated figures still in England” produced “new contemplative texts” in these years (249), more than half of this chapter is devoted to a discussion of earlier material, already addressed by Windeatt (see especially 253), and the larger trends of “pre-Reformation visionary culture” (252). The texts of 1534–50s that Simpson discusses would appear to be limited to the Brief Rule and 13 Preceptes of Robert Parkyn and the Spirituall Exercises of William Peryn. Simpson concludes with a discussion of the promotion of fourteenth-century devotional texts, and the composition of new works, in the recusant communities of the seventeenth century.The Companion includes a helpful annotated bibliography (265–89), divided by chapter, with different sections representing the major themes of each chapter. The entries by Renevey and Gillespie are particularly rich. Finally, a short but clear glossary of key terms and a lengthy index conclude the work. Overall, the Companion appears to be well edited. On page xiv, however, the citation from Bazire and Colledge's edition of The Treatise of Perfection of the Sons of God should refer to page 247 of that text.