As Miri Rubin notes in her introduction to this collection of essays, the historiography of reform largely focuses on monastic and ecclesiastical contexts, often sidelining lay people. It remains one of many areas wherein the place of the laity in the history of medieval Christianity is not yet fully understood. The present volume seeks to address this, focusing on the later period for which we have more sources. To explore how reform shaped relations between clergy and laity, and how dialogue between them shaped reform, it takes up case studies from Italy, the Low Countries, and other locations, including Austria, Bohemia, and Silesia. Each, in its own way, examines novel interactions between the laity and their religious counterparts. Given all we still do not know, and the dramatic religious transformations looming in the rapidly approaching sixteenth century, it is impossible to disagree with Rubin's argument that this field deserves more research.

Most historians will agree that reform, and the role of the laity in relation to it, is an important subject, but that it is also extremely challenging. Most evidence relates to or was produced by clergymen. Historians must scrutinize it for hints of engagement with, or influence by, the laity. Several of the essays included here take that tack. Cécile Carby, in her essay on humanist abbot Girolamo Aliotti's reform of Arezzo's Benedictine monastery of Santa Fiora and Lucilla, explores the learned monk's self-presentation as a heroic Reformer seeking to integrate liturgical reform with the repair and restoration of his monastery. At the same time, Aliotti strongly suggested his project's relevance to local civic identity and argued, to an audience that included prominent Aretine laymen like Poggio Bracciolini and Carlo Marsuppini, that the reform of the monastery would be a boon to both Arezzo and its citizens. Marika Räsänen reveals how lay enthusiasm for the cult of Thomas Aquinas in and around Orvieto, as well as lay knowledge of links between Aquinas, the Feast of Corpus Christi, and its liturgy, led Elias Raymundus, Master of the Order of Preachers, to fundamentally reshape hagiographical treatments of the saint as part of ongoing efforts toward reform in lay circles. This was a project taken up by Vincent Ferrer as well.

The most exciting essays in this volume, though, are those in which lay people appear as actors, either through formal writing or, most fascinatingly, through their deeds. Particularly intriguing is Meri Heinonen's study of book ownership and exchange in Nuremberg at the turn of the fifteenth century. Lay Nurembergers, she finds, owned many of the same books as local convents, donated them regularly, and were keen to encourage reform even in the face of monastic resistance. They were at once interested in reform and eager to engage in the kind of independent biblical reading that Reformers tended to denounce. Reima Välimäki's essay on the inquisitor Peter Zwicker's work in German lands focuses on the case of a woman named Peters, who attempted to discern and exploit Zwicker's priorities as an Inquisitor in order to avoid punishment. She failed and was deemed a relapsed heretic, but her attempt reveals a savvy similar to that documented in recent work on late medieval Italy.

Other fascinating studies in this volume are Stephen Mossman on the writings of Russbroec, Tauler, and Merswin; Mathilde van Dijk comparing discussions of marriage by Dirc of Herxen, a Brother of the Common Life, and Dionysius the Carthusian; and Antonín Kalous on the reform of religious life in Bohemia and Moravia. This last puts special emphasis on the ways that Observant Franciscans could be both alluring to local Utraquists and, at the same time, inimical to them.

Ultimately, these essays are a reminder of the allure of integrating the laity properly into our histories of late medieval religion and also of the challenges inherent in that project. Readers are unlikely to be shocked by what they find here, but each essay explores the problem in new ways, using relatively understudied evidence or suggesting new approaches. They suggest that this is indeed a field that remains lively and open for further research.