Fiona J. Griffiths, Nuns’ Priests’ Tales: Men and Salvation in Medieval Women’s Monastic Life, The Middle Ages Series (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018), pp. 360, 29 illustrations, £56.00. ISBN 978-0-812249-75-0.

Fiona J. Griffiths’s study sheds light on the complexity of gendered identities in the Middle Ages by elucidating the symbiotic relationship between religious men and women. It considers how priests, who were involved in the pastoral care of nuns (cura monialium), understood themselves and the women they served. The chronological emphasis is on the eleventh and twelfth centuries, but there is significant treatment of the late antique and the early Middle Ages, and a few references to the late Middle Ages. Geographically the study concentrates mainly on Germany, France and England.