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Early Modern Catholicism: Essays in Honour of John W. O'Malley, SJ . Edited by Kathleen M. Comerford and Hilmar M. Pabel. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2001. xxxiv + 325 pp. $70.00 cloth; $27.50 paper.

Picart's sermons not only censured heretical doctrine, clerical avarice, and lay apathy, but also emphasized the merits of frequent communion, veneration of the saints, and contrite confession of sins. Known for his own compassion for the poor and his refusal to accept clerical advancement, Le Picart's sermons likewise envisioned a new clergy exemplified by simple teaching, generous charity, and resistance to ecclesiastical promotion. The content of Le Picart's sermons mirrored exactly the convictions of early Jesuits in Paris, who heard him preach and formed lasting, sometimes intimate relationships with him. In both a more simplified style accessible to the laity and in frequent "reassurances of God's love" (212), his preaching marks a significant shift from late medieval sermonizing. On the basis of Le Picart's homiletic corpus and a survey of contemporary preachers, Taylor rejects Crouzet's view that explosive religious tension and eschatological anguish typify the period before 1560. Heresy and Orthodoxy is a marvelous study of Le Picart and the significant collection of his surviving writings and sermons. Two appendices, which record Le Picart's Epistre and five complete sermons, compensate to some degree for the major weakness of the book: the reader is rarely provided with the original French text of many fascinating passages translated into English; one can neither confirm the accuracy of translations nor make one's own discoveries in the footnotes below. Furthermore, in her chapter on the Jesuits, Taylor presents Le Picart as both a major influence on the Jesuits and as a paralleling voice for reform. Based on the evidence presented, it is difficult to prove exactly the degree of Le Picart's impact here, although a personal relationship to the Society of Jesus is clear. It is useful to point out the remarkably similar agenda found among clerical preachers, such as Le Picart, and the incipient brothers of Ignatius. Otherwise there is much to commend here. Taylor successfully weaves together the narrative of an individual preacher together with larger religious controversies in Paris and France. Both expert and novice in French Reformation studies will find the book enlightening and accessible. Moreover, this is not a one-dimensional approach to Le Picart's sermons. Taylor is attentive to theological controversy and pastoral consolation as well as to matters of interest to the social historian, such as the preacher's treatment of domestic life, prostitutes, and the poor. Her periodic dialogue with Crouzet sensitizes her to the 'tone' of the sermons as evidence for themes of divine consolation over apocalyptic uncertainty. In this way Taylor builds on her award winning first book, Soldiers of Christ: Preaching in Late Medieval and Reformation France (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), providing critical models for approaching individual sermons and sermon collections.