other things, have brought into question the contemporary role of Columbanian monasteries in missionary activity at a time when orthodoxy very much mattered. The missionary activity connected with Columbanus and his successors is the subject of the next article, by Herwig Wolfram. Regarding the aborted mission to the Slavs, Wolfram endorses the advice given by an angel to Columbanus in the Vita, arguing that at the time it would have been ‘thoroughly impossible to convert the still fragmented Slav societies’ (p. ). The next two papers concentrate on the famous beer-cask miracle performed by Columbanus during his short period in and around Bregenz. Bernhard Maier looks at the scarce independent evidence for contemporary pagan ritual practice among the Alemanni before arguing persua- sively that Columbanus blowing on the cask should be interpreted as an example of ritual exsufflation and that the identification of Woden with Mercury went back to the latter’s appearances in the Vita Martini. Maier concludes that Jonas’s depiction of the pagans realising that the devil was present in the casket amounts to ‘the oldest example of interpretatio Christiana in the Germanic-speaking world’ (p. ), as it equates their god with the devil and is a negative reflection of the Christian idea of divine presence in the wine of the eucharist. Francesco Borri treats of the beer-miracle in the context of other references to Woden in seventh- and eighth- century sources, arguing that an increased interest in the god was part of a ‘barbarian turn’ in contemporary historiography, with the ruling elites now ‘proud to boast of their barbarian heritage’ (p. ). In the following two papers, Yaniv Fox and Philipp Dörler also discuss Columbanus’ time in Alemannia but are more concerned with his alleged disciple Gallus. The historicity of the hagiographical Gallus hangs by a very thin thread, and both authors have to battle with the almost complete irreconcilabil- ity of the Lives of Gallus and Columbanus, with Fox’s approach to the Gallus legend somewhat more sceptical. In the next article, Stefano Gasparri documents the close relationship between Bobbio and the Lombard court from its foundation onwards and contrasts this royal patronage with the paucity of evidence for private donations. To close, Albrecht Diem provides a translation of the Regula cuiusdam patris, which he dates cautiously to between and . Diem builds a plausible argument that this Rule, the product of a Columbanian milieu, was written for ‘a group of dissen- ters against the abbots of Luxeuil and Bobbio’ (p. ), and speculates that it might even be attributable to the arch-rebel Agretius. While this book cannot be said to change substantially our understanding of Columbanus, it certainly advances the state of knowledge with some fine examples of careful revision and probing. It is thus a welcome addition to the scholarship on a fascinating historical and hagiographical figure. DIARMUID ÓRIAIN MUNICH The acts of the Second Council of Nicaea (). Translated and introduced by Richard Price. vols. (Translated Texts for Historians, .) Pp. xiv + , viii + – . Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, .£. JEH () ; doi:./S Over the last fifteen years Richard Price has done much to make the acts of major ecclesiastical councils from the fifth through eighth centuries accessible by REVIEWS