LAUSR

The book contains nine essays and a brief introduction, organized as ten chapters. The essays relate to the themes of punishment and penance, and each is based on late medieval German writings. Otherwise, they cover very different aspects. Four essays are written in German, and there are twoto three-page English abstracts of these near the end of the book. Of the nine essays, five (Chapters 2, 3, 5, 6, and 7) deal essentially with secular aspects of punishment, and four with religious aspects. Three chapters (2, 3, and 10) take an early legend, for example that of Parsifal in Chapter 3, and show how the legend was treated by a medieval German writer or writers. Two of them (Chapters 2 and 3) consider the relationship between punishment and revenge in an era where justice was often a more private matter than it is today. Chapters 4 and 5 discuss different works of the poet Oswald von Wolkenstein (1376–1445). Chapters 8 and 9 focus on biographies of women whose piety drove them to extremes of asceticism and bodily mortification, and Chapter 10 deals with martyrdom. In Chapter 6 it emerges that issues of defamation and reputation loomed large in Zurich court cases. My favourite essay (Chapter 7) recounts instances from sixteenth century Schwankbücher of black humour in the legal process. No two essays are very similar. For example, while at first sight the two biographies of near-contemporary ascetic women, Christina of Hane (Chapter 8) and Elsbeth of Oye (Chapter 9), appear similar in their dedication to gruesome self-torture, the women were differently motivated. Christina apparently wanted to subjugate her desires, Elsbeth to seek unity with Christ by mirroring His suffering. The introduction does not attempt to integrate all the different aspects. Nor does the book cover every medieval approach to penance and punishment. For example, no essay deals with indulgences, which often served as a form of medieval social reparation with the added aim of encouraging better behaviour in the future. However, the essays in this volume cover a wide range and are often thought-provoking. simoN KemP, University of Canterbury