Arthuriana

REVIEWS73 studies 'the form and conrents of this manuscript... for whar rhey can tell us about some of the circumstances of fifteenth-century English regional manuscript production' (69) and the contemporary devotional concerns of the laity. The texts include TheLayFolk's Catechism, The Charter oftheAbbey ofthe Holy Ghost, Walter Hilton's An Epistle ofthe MixedLife, and sevetal other Middle English prose texts, a couple ofwhich ate apparently unique to this manuscript. Mark Vessey looks at what seems to have been Erasmus' favorire word for nearly rwo decades: lucubratio. Twice, Erasmus used the word as a title for his works— Lucubratiuncuke aliquot (Antwetp: Martens, 1503) and Lucubrationes (Strasbourg: Schürer, 1515). Erasmus acquired the word from Jerome, who also favored irs usage, and as Vassey argues, used it to parallel and compare his own erudirion with that ofJerome. 'Lucubrarions' is a fining non-descriptive title for rhese two compendia of texts, promoring Erasmus's multi-faceted and wide-ranging scholastic interests and capabilities. The Kalender ofShepherdes is a compendium oftempotal, medicinal, and simple devorional texts that was quite popular in fifteenth- and sixteenth-century England. Takami Matsuda and Satoko Tokunaga deconstruct the composite copy at Keio University and examine the various contents ofall the printed fifteenth- and sixteenthcentury editions of the text. There are seven appendices to the article, including a description and contents (text and image) of the Keio copy and a comparison of rhe Keio copy wirh fourteen printed editions. The authors srate rhar rheir study of the Kalender ofShepherdes is a work in progress, but this article, particularly the appendices, will be very useful to anyone studying the genre. The five essays in this book reflecr a fracrion of what the collections of Keio University have ro offer. As the world shrinks, or maybe our own horizons are just broadening, scholars mighr have to start going East to reach rhe Medieval West. I hear Japan Air Lines is offering some good fares to Tokyo. JOHN MCQUILLEN Southern Methodist University ANN R Meyer, MedievalAllegory and the Building ofthe NewJerusalem. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 2003. Pp. x, 214. isbn: 0-85991-796-7. $70. Although the title ofAnn R. Meyer's book suggests a primary interest in medieval allegory, the author is not interesred in examining the use of allegory—or rhe mulrivalence ¡r can allow—more broadly in the literature of the period (as, for instance, in the ttadition of Rosemond Tuve). This publication is instead an exploration of the ways in which the New Jerusalem was represented in medieval literature, art, and culture, and concomitantly the way in which images and allegories can be used to ditect their audience toward God. The pinnacle of Meyer's study is an examination of the fourteenth-century English poem Pearl and the role of rhe NewJerusalem in that literary work. The volume as a whole provides a chronological survey ofthe origins and represenration ofthe NewJerusalem in Plotinus, Augustine, 74ARTHURIANA the Gothic choir and litutgy ofSaint-Denis, the fourteenth-century English chantry movement and, finally, Pearl. The volume is divided into three parts, each containing two chapters. The first division contains a chapter on Plotinus's 'Scteen of Beauty,' delineating Plotinus' philosophy by which images of earthly objects can allow the viewer to approach the divine. This chaptet is followed by one on Augustine's City ofGod, in which Meyer shows how Augustine brought aspects of Plotinus's thinking into a Christian framework. The second division focuses on architecture and liturgy as used to express the NewJerusalem. One chaprer addresses the relarionship between Gothic archirecrure, particularly that ofSaint-Denis in Paris, and eschatological thinking. This includes an analysis of the dedication liturgy used at Saint-Denis, which allows the author to address visual allusions ro the New Jetusalem and the approach to divinity by means of material objects. The next chapter describes the chantry movement in fourteenth-century England and rhe chantry chapels themselves, which in some ways may represenr rhe New Jerusalem. Having by rhis roure broughr us ro fourteenth-century England, the book's final division addresses Pearlana orber poems which have been ascribed ro the same authot. Meyer argues that the Pearl-poet's ornamenr should be understood as...