William Tydeman's volume brings together a wide selection of materials constructing a “theatrical history” of the Middle Ages. The focus is on Western Europe; the temporal boundaries are more or less the fall of the Roman Empire and the emergence of “markedly Renaissance forms in Italy”thus, some one thousand years. The individual sections, each preceded by a brief introduction penned by an associate editor, provide the signposts for this documentary history: “The Inheritance” (Nick Davis), “Latin Liturgical Drama” (Peter Meredith), “Extra-Liturgical Latin and Early Vernacular Drama” (Lynette Muir), “England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales” (Tydeman), “France” (Muir), “The German-Speaking Area” (John E. Tailby), “Italy” (Michael J. Anderson), “The Low Countries” (Elsa Strietman and Muir), “The Iberian Peninsula (Including Majorca)” (Louise M. Haywood), and “Traditions of the People and Folk Drama” (Thomas Pettitt and Leif Søndergaard). These titles unequivocally indicate the scope and the limits of the volume: classical inheritance, the development of liturgical drama within the Roman Catholic Church, and popular religious drama in the vernacular in nine medieval regions. This general historical trajectory is complemented by the extant records about the costumes, audiences, staging, actors, directors, props, contracts, correspondence, and “eye-witness” accounts. Over seven hundred documents of varied length have been compiled from the manuscripts or copied from other reference books on the topic of medieval drama and theatre.