The Strange Case of Ermine de Reims: A Medieval Woman between Demons and Saints. Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski. The Middle Ages Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2015. xii + 236 pp. $55.
personality, such as his devotion and obeisance to prelates, especially members of the curia and the pope. He is said to have appealed to Pope Sixtus IV on behalf of an ailing King Louis XI and wisely sought the blessing of the local Ordinary before building a hermitage. He notes the purported involvement of ecclesiastical authorities in the growth of the order, who were even known to lay the foundation stone for hermitages. Overall, the book portrays a saint who was politically astute. By demonstrating Francesco’s popularity across social sectors, including royalty, church dignitaries, townspeople, and even the Benedictines, Caridi collates the sources in a way that avoids the flatness of some hagiographies. Staying close to the sources, Caridi includes inconsistences regarding key details of Francesco’s life, and demonstrates some of its idiosyncratic features. In a way that is valuable for scholars of Franciscan religious history, Caridi illustrates the church’s general preference for the Observants, as well as disharmony among the members of that movement. The book also provides valuable information about the tension between the Observant and Conventual Franciscans in the sixteenth century. In the final chapters Caridi briefly summarizes the foundation of the Second and Third Orders. He includes one chapter each on the death and canonization of the founder, and ends with a brief mention of the current status of the order and the approbation of Francesco as patron of Italian sailors by Pope Pius XII in 1943 and as patron of Calabria by Pope John XXIII in 1962.