made for Blanche d'Artois and Edmund Crouchback, c. 1275-80 (Francois Avril and Patricia Danz Stirnemann, Manuscrits enlumines d'origine insulaire, VIIe-XXe siecle [Paris, 1987], no. 152); the Brut, BL Egerton 3028, made in 1328, with 118 miniatures including the building of Stonehenge by Merlin; and Langtoft's Chronicle, BL Royal 20.A.II, with King Arthur bearing the arms of the Virgin Mary, among other scenes (for Eg. 3028 and Royal 20.A.II, see R. S. and L. H. Loomis, Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art [New York, 1938]). Particularly striking secular images, all from books written in Latin, are the ana- tomical figures in the medical miscellany in Oxford (cat. 19, pls. 41-42); the zodiacal man representations in St. John's College, Oxford, 178 (cat. 39, fig. 87) and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici Misc. 248 (cat. 76, fig. 189); the finely observed animals and birds that form a frame around the Pilkington Charter (cat. 3, fig. 43); and the four bestiaries, whose illustrations are conveniently tabulated in volume 2. Most innovative of all are the lively scenes of daily life in the famous Smithfield Decretals (cat. 101, figs. 256-58). This is a book that had to be selective, and regrets for what was not included will be inevitable: descriptions are necessarily brief and details, particularly of marginalia, left out. But all scholars and students of English manuscripts will be grateful to Lucy Freeman Sandler for what is in the main a judicious selection of rich material, drawn from a very wide range of collections, several of them little known, like the Archivo de Navarra (cat. 157); the Ricketts Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University (cat. 132); the Biblioteca Queriniana, Brescia (cat. 109); and the Viscount Astor Collection at Ginge Manor, Oxon. (cat. 111). Almost every page in every book from this period is alive with decoration, and the sheer volume and density of painted pages are so great that the paths of purpose and meaning risk seeming obscure. Sandler's pre- sentation of the complexities of stylistic grouping and iconographic innovation are clear and authoritative, and the book will be an indispensable tool in future research. ALISON STONES, University of Pittsburgh MARC SAPERSTEIN, trans., Jewish Preaching, 1200-1800: An Anthology. (Yale Judaica Series, 26.) New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989. Pp. xiii, 470; frontispiece. $45. As the title indicates, this is not a history of Jewish preaching, and yet it is certainly more than just an anthology. The author provides a thorough introduction to his subject, carefully analyzing the structure and themes of what may be termed "medi- eval" Jewish preaching (there has long been a tendency for Jewish scholars to consider Jewish medieval history to extend at least to 1800). There are some interesting comparisons to research on Christian preaching, the sources for which are obviously so much richer. Learned as the introduction indeed is, it may at times be too technical and specialized for the interests of the general medievalist. Therefore it is important to call attention to such important points as (pp. 42-43) the discussion of the use of vernacular in the sermons. The author has chosen, indeed, to limit his treatment to Hebrew sermons, thereby depriving the reader of any mention of, for instance, important Spanish, Portuguese, and even English sermons of the Sefardic commu- nities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Legitimate as it may be to thus limit the sources considered, the statement cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged that "Jews rarely wrote anything in the vernacular" and that, indeed, "few" even read the vernacular. Jews of medieval Spain, for example, wrote quite extensively in the vernacular (which must also include Arabic, even for made for Blanche d'Artois and Edmund Crouchback, c. 1275-80 (Francois Avril and Patricia Danz Stirnemann, Manuscrits enlumines d'origine insulaire, VIIe-XXe siecle [Paris, 1987], no. 152); the Brut, BL Egerton 3028, made in 1328, with 118 miniatures including the building of Stonehenge by Merlin; and Langtoft's Chronicle, BL Royal 20.A.II, with King Arthur bearing the arms of the Virgin Mary, among other scenes (for Eg. 3028 and Royal 20.A.II, see R. S. and L. H. Loomis, Arthurian Legends in Medieval Art [New York, 1938]). Particularly striking secular images, all from books written in Latin, are the ana- tomical figures in the medical miscellany in Oxford (cat. 19, pls. 41-42); the zodiacal man representations in St. John's College, Oxford, 178 (cat. 39, fig. 87) and Oxford, Bodleian Library, Canonici Misc. 248 (cat. 76, fig. 189); the finely observed animals and birds that form a frame around the Pilkington Charter (cat. 3, fig. 43); and the four bestiaries, whose illustrations are conveniently tabulated in volume 2. Most innovative of all are the lively scenes of daily life in the famous Smithfield Decretals (cat. 101, figs. 256-58). This is a book that had to be selective, and regrets for what was not included will be inevitable: descriptions are necessarily brief and details, particularly of marginalia, left out. But all scholars and students of English manuscripts will be grateful to Lucy Freeman Sandler for what is in the main a judicious selection of rich material, drawn from a very wide range of collections, several of them little known, like the Archivo de Navarra (cat. 157); the Ricketts Collection, Lilly Library, Indiana University (cat. 132); the Biblioteca Queriniana, Brescia (cat. 109); and the Viscount Astor Collection at Ginge Manor, Oxon. (cat. 111). Almost every page in every book from this period is alive with decoration, and the sheer volume and density of painted pages are so great that the paths of purpose and meaning risk seeming obscure. Sandler's pre- sentation of the complexities of stylistic grouping and iconographic innovation are clear and authoritative, and the book will be an indispensable tool in future research. ALISON STONES, University of Pittsburgh MARC SAPERSTEIN, trans., Jewish Preaching, 1200-1800: An Anthology. (Yale Judaica Series, 26.) New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1989. Pp. xiii, 470; frontispiece. $45. As the title indicates, this is not a history of Jewish preaching, and yet it is certainly more than just an anthology. The author provides a thorough introduction to his subject, carefully analyzing the structure and themes of what may be termed "medi- eval" Jewish preaching (there has long been a tendency for Jewish scholars to consider Jewish medieval history to extend at least to 1800). There are some interesting comparisons to research on Christian preaching, the sources for which are obviously so much richer. Learned as the introduction indeed is, it may at times be too technical and specialized for the interests of the general medievalist. Therefore it is important to call attention to such important points as (pp. 42-43) the discussion of the use of vernacular in the sermons. The author has chosen, indeed, to limit his treatment to Hebrew sermons, thereby depriving the reader of any mention of, for instance, important Spanish, Portuguese, and even English sermons of the Sefardic commu- nities of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Legitimate as it may be to thus limit the sources considered, the statement cannot be allowed to pass unchallenged that "Jews rarely wrote anything in the vernacular" and that, indeed, "few" even read the vernacular. Jews of medieval Spain, for example, wrote quite extensively in the vernacular (which must also include Arabic, even for Reviews Reviews 695 695