Book review: Signs of Devotion: The Cult of St. Æthelthryth in Medieval England, 695–1615. By Virginia Blanton. (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2007. Pp. xviii, 349. $65.00. ISBN 978-0-271-02984-9.)

Virginia Blanton’s lucid examination of the cult of St. Æthelthryth (d. 679), founder and first abbess of the abbey of Ely (also known as Ætheldreda and Audrey/Audrée), is valuable partly in its uniqueness. It is the first study of an Anglo-Saxon saint to trace its meanings across the early-medieval to early-modern periods. This multidisciplinary study draws on an impressive range of sources, including all the extant lives of Æthelthryth (of which over twenty-five versions survive, written in Latin, Old English, Anglo-Norman, and Middle English), as well as visual representations of her figure and life in various media. The book is well illustrated. An appendix provides a useful list of more than 150 images of the saint, some no longer extant, as well as a list of dedications. Documentary evidence of both clerical and lay responses to the cult also are examined. Overall, the book achieves its stated aim of demonstrating “how one national figure provides a central point of investigation among the cultic practices of several disparate groups over an extended period of time—religious and lay, aristocratic and common, male and female, literate and nonliterate” (p. 5). In common with other similar studies Blanton stresses the malleable and multivalent nature of the cult and divides her analysis into five chapters. These focus on its manifestation in specific chronological contexts, thus illuminating the responses of different groups of devotees.