medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture
I think we can conclude that Richard Pfaff's book has definitely been published - Blackwell's claim to have copies in stock, and they are a more credible source than most. Frustrating, Amazon UK seem blithely unaware that the publication date was probably 1 October, rather than 31 October, and so are unconcerned that they don't have copies! Similarly, Amazon US seem convinced that the US publication date is 30 November, rather than (as I suspect) 1 November.
Meanwhile, the book is available on Google Books! So I can at least catch glimpses of it, while the various brances of Amazon are sorting themselves out. Somewhat alarmingly, it appears to have no bibliography, which may make it a tad awkward to use (usability will be dependent on the index, which is always a bit fraught.) There seems to be a major limitation in that only the Mass and Office are considered (as if there was a world shortage of books dealing with the Mass and Office...) For a book which aims to tell the history of the liturgy through the liturgical books, it would be a major mistake not to deal with the Manual (for the Occasional Offices - of major concern to parishes and hence ordinary people) or the Pontifical (for pontifical offices - a key set of clues, one would have thought, for the origins of the various Uses.) The excuse is, of course, considerations of space, and I can well understand Pfaff baulking at the thought of tackling Books of Hours, but there aren't really all that many Manuals and Pontificals relevant to England.
Somewhat disconcertingly, before even seeing a copy I have found my first error - John Wickham Legg was, of course, a physician rather than a surgeon.
John Briggs
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