Becket’s Crown: Art and Imagination in Gothic England 1170–1300 is a book of remarkable depth and range. In contrast with more typical media-specific studies of the past, Paul Binski has undertaken a study that considers the art of the period in an integrated and synthetic manner. Indeed, Binski’s approach not only considers a broad range of media but also a broad range of issues concerning the production and reception of his subject. This dense and complex analysis draws on a variety of methodologies, chief among them the historical and cultural theories developed by anthropologist Clifford Geertz. In order to develop a more holistic understanding of these cultural products, Binski uses an approach known as “thick description” to place the objects of his study “within a multiplicity of complex structures—which might be social, economic, religious, ethical, aesthetic, mythological . . .” (xi). Binski acknowledges the messiness such a study entails, as it often reveals discontinuities and paradoxes instead of establishing a coherent synthesized narrative about the art of the period.

The period 1170–1300 was one of dramatic change and innovation in English art and religious life. It also includes some of the grandest and most elaborate of English religious buildings: Canterbury, Lincoln, Salisbury, and Ely. The book begins with a detailed analysis of Canterbury as rebuilt in the 1170s. In a fascinating consideration of the importance of what he calls “local knowledge,” in this case the martyrdom and cult of St. Thomas, Binski analyzes the lavish materials and magnificence of the new choir at Canterbury to reveal how it manifests both antiquarian and modern architectural practice. Widely acknowledged as the seminal building for the Gothic in England, Canterbury as explained by Binski also reflects a longer tradition of sanctuaries for Christian martyrdom with links to the use of color, for example, in Roman churches. Comparisons of textual evidence connected with Canterbury, such as Gervase’s Chronicle, with larger Benedictine and Gregorian literary traditions as well as with Vitruvius establishes Binski’s method of explaining particulars, in this case the Canterbury choir, in terms of both local conditions and international movements.

While Canterbury is a significant and influential building for English ecclesiastical architecture, Binski rightly points out that it was never “copied so much as interpreted.” He goes on to discuss later buildings such as Lincoln and Salisbury not as derivations or imitations of Canterbury but successors who recast ideas from Canterbury in terms of their own local situation as well as the changing nature of ecclesiastical organization. Increasingly, concern for pastoral obligations and the changing nature of the secular church strongly affected the architecture Binski examines. A close study of patrons such as Stephen Langton and his circle and their intellectual outlook, in Langton’s case conditioned by links with the Paris schools, underlies the careful reading of the buildings. The notion of magnificence as appropriate for a church came to include purbeck marble as used at Canterbury, and it meant that richness of materials and ornamentation was appropriate for ecclesiastical architecture, as seen at the lavish choirs of Lincoln and Ely. At Ely, Bishop Northwald succeeded in creating a sumptuous choir that drew on nationally recognized artistic practices that in turn were interpreted to suit local Ely’s particular traditions and needs. The complexity of artistic patronage and the interrelationship between local conditions and larger artistic currents is brilliantly discussed in Binski’s analyses of the great churches of thirteenth-century England.

While much of the book focuses on great men and their great churches, it also considers the Church’s concern for its pastoral mission and the laity. An examination of an Anglo-Norman tract on Mass conduct (BN MS fr. 13342) provides fascinating insights into “public religion” in terms of gesture, liturgy, and prayer. In another case study, this time of an incident in London in 1305, a cross “of terrible aspect” was used by a parish priest, resulting in an attack on the priest by the canons of St. Paul’s. The cross was removed from the parish and ultimately banned by the Bishop of London. The cross’s terrible aspect was apparently due to the fact that it probably resembled a tree branch, a form typical of German crosses and reflecting local practice in the home of its Rhenish maker. In early fourteenth-century England, however, such a form was novel and regarded as threatening to the norms of Church practice. Its power as an image to promote undesirable and perhaps untempered behavior on the part of the laity led Ralph Baldock, the bishop of London, to action. This study reveals the relationship between parish practice and episcopal governance as well as the parameters for acceptable behavior and images in the Church. The events of 1305 with regard to the cross inform understandings of why such image use was regulated and regarded as critical by the Church hierarchy.

Throughout a series of such careful questioning and examination of objects, texts, and practices, Binski reveals the “density of signification” of medieval objects and buildings. More is at work than simply the observable forms of the building, as materials, color, and form may have an allegorical relationship to the symbolism intended. The meaning of the object is clearly multilayered and powerful for its multiple audiences. His book reveals the complexity and richness of medieval artistic production and religious life through its analysis of a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to, particular examples of art and architecture as well as analysis of religious and philosophical thought, worship practices, and church reforms. Through this thicket of analysis, the significance of the particular circumstances of an object’s use and production are revealed along with its relationship to broader regional, national, and international trends. Binski’s compelling command of a wide range of sources is brought to bear on a diversity of objects.

Ultimately, his book focuses on the patron and cultural conditions as the chief players in artistic design and production. Architects and craftsmen are not key players in his version of thirteenth-century England. This is by no means a criticism, however, as this is not the subject of his wide-ranging cultural study. He has brought attention once again to a period that has received little thorough examination since Peter Brieger’s 1957 volume in the Oxford History of Art, English Art 1216–1307 (Oxford: Clarendon Press). In contrast to Brieger’s book, Becket’s Crown is a more focused study that considers selected examples within the framework of particular themes centered around religion, aesthetics, and ethics. The density of Binski’s investigation and the many contradictions it reveals does not make for easy reading, but its rich rewards are enhanced by repeated considerations of the text’s many compelling insights into a variety of issues and objects. In Becket’s Crown, Binski has redefined the nature of contextual studies for art historical scholarship.