LAUSR

A substantial modern research effort focused on the Observant reforms of the later Middle Ages, now going back some three decades and more, has produced a range of foundational English-language studies focused on the Dominican order. Claire Taylor Jones now complements this corpus of scholarship with her fine translation of Johannes Meyer’s Book of the Reformation of the Order of Preachers, a text that has long been central to modern scholarly accounts of Dominican Observant reform. A substantial introduction provides a sophisticated framework for approaching Meyer and his text. It offers a “nested” series of contexts that moves from the general context of reform in the later Middle Ages to its Dominican context, then to Meyer’s biography and the structures and procedures for reform he presumed, and finally to Meyer’s text itself and the manuscripts. Throughout these opening remarks, Jones articulates a nuanced awareness of the challenges of interpretation and translation that Meyer’s work presents. The translation of Meyer’s text follows: a prologue and five books, covering the foundation of the community of Schönensteinbach and its adoption into the Dominican Order (books 1–2); the lives of its early sisters (books 3–4); and a much longer final book that tells the story of the rise of Dominican reform in both male and female houses across Germany. A series of helpful maps and appendices complement the translation. This is a fine piece of scholarship. Jones’ translation has made available to both scholars and students a rich and vital source for understanding the complexities of religious life, religious women, and reform at the end of the Middle Ages.