In the closing lines of The Gothic Idol Michael Camille stresses the 'beautiful but terrible tyranny' of Medieval Art. It is an issue which he illustrates by a study of the manipulation of the notions of idols and idolatry in order to categorise alien or unwanted groups as Other. Once such groups were categorised in this manner the established elites, whether clerical or secular, could wreak a terrible vengeance on them. Accusations of idolatry were levelled against pagans, Saracens, Jews, the Templars and even Pope Boniface VIII. The charges against the Templars concerned their supposed worship of a talking head (plausibly identified as a headreliquary), while those against Boniface related to the statues of himself which he commissioned and had set up. There were, however, more general charges of idolatry which could be levelled against the Christians, with their attachment to images and icons. One of the crueller ironies of the Middle Ages was the use of the slur of idolatry by the image-loving Christians against the aniconic Jews and Saracens. There was, thus, a double problem: making the charge of idolatry stick on the Jews and Muslims, while at the same time defending Christian images as legitimate. The strategic use of accusations of idolatry was further complicated by the development of non-religious images. Images of Romance and courtly love exploited and even parodied Christian iconography. In time, also, appreciation of antique statuary, finally divested of its pagan overtones, developed, with the result that Camille is able to trace a line from pagan god to idol to work of art, and to set this alongside another development, the increasing importance of the creator or artist. At times Camille directs his discourse towards a very specific audience. Thus, in dealing with the image of Venus he attacks Panofsky's perception of medieval attitudes towards statues of the goddess: 'He looks back at medieval representations from the standpoint of their subsequent transformation in the Renaissance.' This concern to address the scholars of later periods is confirmed by the final chapter, which deals with Renaissance, Reformation and Postmodern perceptions of idols. The interest and complexity of Medieval Art is being expounded to the uninitiated. Or to be more exact, the interest of Gothic Art is being championed. Reasonably enough Romanesque and preRomanesque Art is only lightly touched on. Nevertheless, it is possible to think that Camille's criticism of Panofsky has a touch of the pot calling the kettle black in the light of the assertion that 'sculpture was revived in the twelfth century after nearly a millenium during which the fear of idolatry precluded its production'. It would be difficult to think of a less accurate way of characterising the history of sculpture in the early Middle Ages; not only does plenty of sculpture survive from that period, but it is clear from descriptions that much has been lost, and to judge from the Anglo-Saxon evidence some of that was unquestionably monumental in scale. Again, Camille rightly comments on the need to 'replace our notion of lifelikeness as photographic realism with the capacity of images to seem to live, move, and breathe', when discussing the Essen Madonna, but he does not recognise the extent to which scholars of the tenth century have discovered an emphasis on suffering in the crucifixes of that period. While making a case for the complexity and ambiguity of images in the Gothic period, the author has underestimated the extent to which that had been true for the preceding millenium. Camille addresses the Renaissance art historian; he also addresses the historian. 'Once we see that the transfer of power is a more important factor in the history of art than the tedious transmission of models, and that this is the mechanism by which content is carried down into tradition, the capacity of image-makers constantly to reinvent rather than refer to meaning becomes clear and the more easily will art history become essential to all historical enquiry.' The point is a powerful one, but it would be all the stronger if Camille's historical touch were surer. This is not a matter of misplacing John of Damascus after the ninth-century Byzantine Nicetas, but rather of ignoring the growing awareness among historians of sources being texts. Thus, the author stresses 'the problem of privileging these objects as works of art. This does not affect historians proper because they can analyse even the most horrific documents (witch trials and mass murders, etc.) without having to evaluate the special formal status of the document itself.' Although literary texts, which constitute a sizeable proportion of medieval sources, may not be privileged as 'works of art' in the same way as manuscripts, painting or sculpture, an historian fails 'to evaluate the special formal status of the document itself at his or her peril.