The English Prose Treatises of Richard Rolle. by Claire Elizabeth McIlroy. Studies in Medieval Mysticism, 4. Cambridge: D. S. brewer, 2004. Pp. x + 212. $70.

The subject of this book is three brief prose treatises written in English by Richard Rolle (d. 1349), Ego Dormio, The Commandment, and The Form of Living. These devotional works, thought to be written rather late in Rolle's life, together take up a mere 39 pages in the standard edition by Sarah Ogilvie-Thomson (EEtS 293 [1988]). While these writings make up a substantial proportion of his authentic English work, they represent a small part of his total literary output when the extensive body of his Latin writings is taken into account. the fact that we have a monograph on these three brief English treatises, while the larger Latin works remain largely unexamined, is perhaps more a reflection of the present day disciplinary dominance of English departments than of the relative importance of these English treatises in Rolle's literary career. Yet, as McIlroy notes, it is the English writings that have assured him a place in the canon of major late-medieval English mystics.

Thomas H. Bestul
Professor of History
University of Illinois, Chicago