Three Alliterative Saints' Hymns: Late Middle English Stanzaic Poems. Edited by Ruth Kennedy. Early English Text Society, o.s. 321. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Pp. cix + 120; 4 plates. $74.

In this useful edition, Ruth Kennedy collects three Middle English poems about three different saints: Katherine of Alexandra, John the Evangelist, and John the Baptist. Each of the poems, or "hymns" as they have long been known, has been edited previously: The Alliterative Katherine Hymn (titled in the MED as "Katereyn pe curteys") by the German scholars Heuser (1907) and Holthausen (1937); the John Evangelist Hymn for EETS (1867, revised 1914) and by Horstmann in his Altenglische Legenden: Neue Folge (1881); and the John Baptist Hymn for EETS in 1921. This new edition improves on previous efforts and, by presenting the hagiographical odes as a group, calls attention to their literary and linguistic similarities and significance.


Robert K. Upchurch
University of North Texas