The English Province of the Franciscans (1224–c.1350). Michael J. P. Robson, ed. The Medieval Franciscans 14. Leiden: Brill, 2017. xxx + 496 pp. $159.
ductory sense. Jonathan Juilfs addresses the question of whether any of the surviving versions of theMirror can be deemed closer to the original than any other, and responds in the negative. Juilfs presumes to demolish arguments of Hasenohr and myself, though I consider some of his work to be faulty for reasons too complicated to deal with in a limited review. Imke de Gier’s advanced piece on “The Role of the Mirror as a Book” is a “marguerite”—that is, a pearl. With great acumen de Gier distinguishes between Marguerite’s many references to “this book” as an actual book and others that are meant to stand for a spiritual journey. “This book” in the latter sense is the fiction of the “soul’s” writing project that requires work and suffering, and issues into her annihilation. According to de Gier the same project is meant to serve as a model for the reader, thereby implying that the very difficulty of the Mirror is meant to serve a constructive (actually, destructive) purpose.