Book review: Catherine Sanok. Her Life Historical: Exemplarity and Female Saints' Lives in Late Medieval England.(The Middle Ages Series.) Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. 2007. Pp. xvii, 256. $55.00

Until relatively recently saints' lives ranked among the most derided and mistrusted of medieval sources. However, in the last decade or so they have undergone a re-evaluation and rehabilitation that has seen their recognition as important sources not just for religious history, but for its social and cultural versions too. In relation to late medieval England, however, it is ironic to note that the vast majority of the historicizing work on saints' lives has been produced by literary scholars, who have shown the ways in which hagiography can be used to shed light upon the society in which it was written and read. In relation to Middle English hagiography the best and most influential work to have appeared in recent years has focused on the lives of female saints. Catherine Sanok's excellent study grows out of this established scholarship to further enhance our understanding of female saints' lives and their utility as sources both for and about women.