This new volume in Brill's Companions to the Christian Tradition series comprises an introduction and thirteen articles on “religious rules, rule-like documents and customaries” (1). Editor Krijn Pansters’ introduction to the volume offers a brisk historical overview of monasticism that mainly replicates traditional narratives that privilege the development of (male) religious orders, followed by a thorough and thoughtful discussion of various historiographical approaches to the study of rules and customaries.

Pansters designates three broad categories of religious: monks, represented by essays on “The Rule of St Benedict” (James Clark), “Cistercian Customaries” (Emilia Jamroziak), and “Carthusian Customaries (Stephen Molvarec and Tom Gaens); canons, represented by essays on “The Rule of St Augustine” (Paul van Geest), “The Customaries of Saint-Ruf” (Ursula Vones-Liebenstein), “The Premonstratensian Project” (Carol Neel), and the “Templars, Hospitallers, and Teutonic Knights” (Kristjan Toomaspoeg); and mendicants, viewed through contributions on “The Dominican Constitutiones” (Gert Melville), “The Rule of St Francis” (Holly J. Greico), “The Rules of Poor Clares and Minoresses” (Bert Roest), “The Rule of the Franciscan Third Order” (Jean-François Godet-Calogeras), “The Carmelite Rule” (Coralie Zermatten), and “The Augustinian Rules and Constitutions” (Matthew Ponesse). To facilitate comparison across the articles, authors were invited to address a shared set of conceptual and methodological issues (including questions of group origins, characteristic spiritual practices, the survival and authenticity of textual sources, and contributions in the areas of education, theology, the arts, craftwork, and architecture). This shared framework productively links the various articles and lends admirable coherence to the volume. The bibliographies that follow each article provide a useful starting point for further reading and research, although these could have been made easier to use with uniform alphabetizing by author or editor name.

A Companion to Medieval Rules and Customaries provides a useful starting point for scholars interested in extending their understanding of the ideals and realities of formal religious orders and for advanced students in search of steady guidance through the sometimes-bewildering world of monastic rules and customaries.