Elizabeth Saxon’s The Eucharist in Romanesque France is strikingly ambitious. A study of eucharistic theology and devotion in eleventh- and twelfth-century “France” (up to approximately 1160), it simultaneously aspires to be a survey, in the spirit of Emile Mâle’s great overviews, of relevant contemporary iconography—drawn primarily from monumental sculpture, in Saxon’s case, but also on occasion from frescoes and manuscript illumination. As Saxon states in her introduction, her aim is “to juxtapose aspects of the multi-faceted penitential-eucharistic devotion, as revealed in theological writings and Mass commentaries, in Gregorian reform, in heretical circles both clerical and popular and in works of art, so that the reader can contemplate, through a wider juxtaposition than that usually practicable in more detailed specialized scholarship, something of the mood of the period” (2).

To this end, the book is organized, between an introduction and a conclusion, into nine chapters. The first two examine theological debates on the Eucharist and penance: “The Theological Context” focuses on the question of Christ’s miraculous presence in the Eucharist, while “Sacrifice, Offering and Atonement” concentrates on concepts of sacrifice and their increasingly penitential character by the end of the eleventh century (here, the writings of Anselm of Canterbury receive special attention). Chapter 3, “The Penitential Eucharistic Focus,” picks up on this last thread by exploring, first, various aspects of penitential-eucharistic piety, from confession practices and doctrines of penance to prayers for the dead and evolving ideas about purgatory. It then initiates the book’s first discussion of works of art. The sculpted portal of the church of St Martin at Besse is examined here at some length, but beyond Besse—and this is true for the book as a whole—the focus is less on specific works of art than on the biblical or biblically based subjects they depict, interpreted through the lens of contemporary writings. Among the many subjects covered are the Raising of Lazarus, the Purification of Isaiah’s Lips, the Presentation in the Temple, and Daniel in the Lions’ Den and the Coming of Habakkuk.

Chapter 4, “The Penitential-Eucharistic Context of the Reform Movements,” investigates the nature of the Gregorian papal reform, in particular, and how its attempts to purify the priesthood led to a greater emphasis on the importance of the Eucharist. Again, this account ends with a discussion of images or, rather, the subjects they envision, first those “relating to the overall reform” (such as Peter and the traditio legis, the Temple and the Tabernacle, and Hugh of St Victor’s De arca Noe mystica) and then those still linked to the reform but “with penitential-eucharistic associations” (such as the Cleansing of the Temple, the Sacrifices of Cain and Abel, and Judas at the Last Supper). Chapter 5, “Mass Commentaries,” examines key ideas concerning the Eucharist articulated in a range of Mass commentaries—a popular genre in the twelfth century—by such significant theologians of the period as Odo of Cambrai, Rupert of Deutz, Honorius Augustodunensis, and Ivo of Chartres. Chapter 6, “The Image of the Hand-held Host,” explores the motif of the eucharistic host held in someone’s hands, as formulated both in written texts of the twelfth century and in works of art. It argues that the motif was usually intended to confirm the corpus verum—the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist—and the importance of the priest in administering this sacrament. Here, the survey of subjects, with reference to various works of art, include Christ in Majesty, David and Achis, the Communion of St Denis, the Last Supper, the Supper at Emmaus, the Incredulity of Thomas, the Church as Provider of the Sacraments, the Magi, the Flight into Egypt, and again Daniel in the Lions’ Den.

Chapter 7, “The Continuity of Offering in the History of Salvation,” focuses on how reform-influenced written texts (in particular by Ivo of Chartres and Hildebert of Lavardin) and works of art emphasized the harmony of offerings in the Old and New Testaments as a means of stressing the valid role of the priesthood in providing the Eucharist. It also explores the early history of typological imagery, looking at examples ranging from the sixth-century mosaics at San Vitale, Ravenna, to illuminations in the early eleventh-century Uta Codex, produced in Regensburg. The chapter then examines imagery in a number of twelfth-century works of art, including miniatures in the Floreffe Bible, frescoes in the church of St-Savin-sur-Gartempe, and capital and portal sculpture in the church at St Madeleine, Vézelay. Subjects discussed here include Abraham and Melchizidek, the Sacrifice of Isaac, Moses and the Brazen Serpent, Christ’s Descent into Hell, and the Mystic Mill. Chapter 8, “For the Love of Christ,” investigates the increasing interest in—indeed, love for—the humanity and suffering of Christ in devotional literature of the twelfth century, and its impact on eucharistic and penitential thought. Writers whose ideas are discussed include Alger of Liege, Anselm of Laon, William of St-Thierry, Rupert of Deutz, Peter the Venerable, Bernard of Clairvaux, and Aelred of Reivaulx. Subjects surveyed, in relation to numerous works of art, include the Pilgrims’ Journey to Emmaus, John on the Breast of Christ at the Last Supper, Mary as Sufferer, as Priest, and as Mediatrix, Christ as Bridegroom, the Wounds of Christ, and the Crucifixion. Chapter 9, “Response to the Heresies of the Eucharist,” finally, explores the rise of heresy in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, the ideas pertinent to eucharistic thought of its main protagonists—Henry of Lausanne, Peter de Bruys, and the Cathars—and the Church’s varied reactions to these heresies, with Peter the Venerable’s response to the so-called Petrobrusians receiving the most attention. The chapter also investigates whether any imagery of the period can be seen as anti-heretical in intent, the focus here being placed on the sculpted tympanum and porch walls of the church of Beaulieu-sur-Dordogne. Saxon concludes—as others have before her—that while the degree to which works of art were designed as responses to heresy has probably been overstated in scholarship (now quite old in vintage), the anti-heretical resonance of doctrinally orthodox works of art, especially those with a penitential edge, cannot be discounted.

As even this quick summary makes clear, Saxon’s book covers a great deal of ground. Its interdisciplinary aspirations are admirable, the author’s enthusiasm for her subject is engagingly evident, and there is much of scholarly value to be gleaned from its pages, especially in regard to the author’s learned exploration of penitential-eucharistic thought (this reviewer found the chapter on Mass Commentaries particularly enlightening). The book, however, is not without problems. First, there is a confounding lack of clarity in its organization. For example, the relationship of the book’s nine chapters to each other—and thus the logic of the arrangement of the book as whole—is not addressed until the conclusion, and then still not quite explicitly. This absence of a guiding narrative, combined with the rapid movement from topic to topic even within each chapter, means that the text reads more like a series of mini-studies than a single, coherent argument.

Second, the treatment of works of art throughout Saxon’s study is in certain respects wanting. In technical terms, there are relatively few illustrations (25) given the large number of works of art discussed, and they do not always reflect the emphases in the book. For example, frescoes at Vicq (Berry) and at La Trinité, Vendôme, both receive extended attention, relative to other works, but are not illustrated, while the wood Deposition at Erill la Vall (Catalonia) is illustrated but mentioned in only one sentence. In methodological terms, the broadly focused iconographic survey—pioneering in Mâle’s day—has built into it a number of drawbacks. In concentrating on subject matter alone, and its relationship to texts, the iconographic approach tends to reduce works of art to mere illustrations of those texts or related ideas. Such a reduction has a fragmenting effect on the work of art itself, erasing its object status (and thus ignoring, for example, the sensory and significative importance of materials), and divorcing it from the various original, intended contexts (pictorial, architectural, and ritual, for example) that likely made that work of art meaningful in the first place. Saxon’s disclaimers in the introduction concerning the limitations of her study indicate that she is aware of these potential problems. She also does discuss on occasion, for example, the location of a sculpted capital within a church, its physical relationship to others in that space, and some of the possible consequences of these relationships for the capital’s meaning. Unfortunately, however, such discussions tend to be brief, and they are the exception rather than the norm. One notable result of the author’s concentration on iconography alone, given the central theme of the study, is the absence of any discussion of the fascinating and theologically explosive parallels between the religious work of art and the Eucharist—both render God visible, after all, as, or in, a tangible material object. How did medieval writers make sense of these parallels—either for or against the work of art—and were their implications ever explored in Romanesque works of art themselves? In recent years, art historians have investigated these kinds of image-theoretical issues to great effect, and one wishes that Saxon, given her evident skills in navigating the subtleties of theological argumentation, had done the same.

Nevertheless, it is certainly the case that the considerable contributions made by Saxon’s book to our understanding of eleventh- and twelfth-century European religious culture will enable the production of more Eucharist-related scholarship—including that pertaining to image theory—in the future.