Christianity and Culture in the Middle Ages: Essays to Honor John Van Engen ed. by David C. Mengel and Lisa Wolverton (review)

Enduringly popular, intellectually significant, and quintessentially controversial, Peter Abelard remains a popular subject of research and academic inquiry. The historiography is voluminous. Now comes another tome. Happily, this one is worth sustained consideration. Juanita Feros Ruys's study is massively learned and erudite. Peter Abelard is reintroduced to medievalists as a figure beyond the heady days of his public life and Ruys sheds new and important light on other dimensions of this complex and fascinating personality. The text produced by Ruys is noteworthy and stands without antecedent or peer both for originality and interpretation. Engen's work and the essays in this collection warn about the propensity to sort medieval matters into approved and disapproved taxonomies. Fourth, while the concept of reform may be vexatious, it cannot be dismissed. Fifth, the value of a counterfactual principle should be applied to the entire Middle Ages. Sixth, the goal of scholarship should be neither to defend nor condemn, but to understand and explain. Seventh, 'Christianity', in the later Middle Ages especially, represents a multi-layered complexity filled with options, opportunities, and otherness which defies simplification.