Linda Palfreeman, Spain Bleeds: The Development of Battlefield Blood Transfusion during the Civil War (Brighton, Chicago, Toronto: Sussex Academic Press, 2015), pp. xviii, 204, $64.95, hardback, ISBN: 978-1-84519-717-9.

as the basis for a re-evaluation of the relationship between religion and medicine in the middle ages. Historians have tended to study miracles from either a medical or a religious perspective, but McCleery convincingly argues that this is an anachronistic division and thus a more integrated approach is needed. She also demonstrates the potential of sociostatistical approaches to miracle collections: it is hard to disagree with her claim that ‘there is something inherently countable about miracles’ (140). Irina Metzler’s contribution is also inspired by a numbers-based observation. Her essay ‘Indiscriminate healing miracles in decline: how social realities affect religious perception’ asks why ‘healing miracles, which had been so popular and numerous during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, take a numerical nosedive from the fourteenth century onwards’ (155). Some indication of the scale of this supposed decline would have been useful; Metzler refers to ‘interesting statistics’ in the work of André Vauchez and Pierre-André Sigal, but fails to quote them, or even to give detailed references for the interested reader to follow. Furthermore, whilst Metzler posits some interesting cultural explanations for this shift, she neglects to consider the possibility that the ‘nosedive’ might actually reflect a decline in the recording of miraculous cures rather than a decline in claims that such cures had taken place. The last medically-focused contribution takes as its subject ‘St Edmund of East Anglia: “martir, mayde and kynge”, and midwife?’. Rebecca Pinner investigates the only childbirth miracle attributed to St Edmund, the beneficiary of which was Eleanor of Provence, queen of Henry III of England. Pinner’s discussion of the miracle and its context is engaging, ranging from antiphons to bull-based fertility rituals, but ultimately provides a somewhat overcomplicated solution to the problem of why a king might appeal to one of his favourite saints when his wife was experiencing a difficult labour. The final essay (‘John Foxe’s golden saints? Ways of reading Foxe’s female martyrs in light of Voragine’s Golden Legend’) moves forward in time to the late sixteenth century. Fiona Kao’s study of Foxe’s portrayal of female martyrs is an interesting one, and her contention that his work was influenced by medieval hagiography appears plausible. But the essay has little to say about medieval miracles, and consequently it sits somewhat awkwardly alongside the rest of the collection. Overall, Contextualizing Miracles is a welcome addition to the ever-growing body of literature on medieval miracles. Its breadth of approach ensures that it is useful to a wide range of readers, and there is certainly much here to interest medical historians. Although the quality of the essays is somewhat variable, the volume demonstrates both the vibrancy of current research and the great potential for further work in this field.