John Capgrave's Fifteenth Century. By Karen A. Winstead. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007. Pp. xiv + 231. $55.

John Capgrave probably features on few lists of important medieval authors. Yet a sizeable body of work by him survives, in English and in Latin, and unlike many more celebrated literary figures from the period—William Thorpe, Julian of Norwich, Margery Kempe, and Sir Thomas Malory, for example—we know a fair amount about him. We know his dates of birth and death (1393–1464), his university education (Cambridge BA and DD), and his later career and achievements. An Augustinian friar from Bishop's Lynn, he served as Prior Provincial of the Augustinians in England from 1453–57. Exploiting this material, and making creative use of context, Karen Winstead's new book offers a

Wendy Scase
University of Birmingham