Philippe Cordez, Treasure, Memory, Nature: Church Objects in the Middle Ages, trans. Chloe Morgan, ed. Julia Oswald. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020, 276 pp., numerous ill., b/w and color.

This book had a bit of curious history; first having been defended as a doctoral dissertation in 2010, then it was published in German in 2015, whereupon the original French was published in 2016, and now, in 2020, an English translation appeared in print (with the name of the translator and editor rather hidden, not appearing on the cover page). The study focuses on objects in medieval art, primarily in the service of the Church, but, contrary to the sub-title, it deals with many different objects also, not only religious or liturgical ones. The main emphasis, granted, rests on objects found in church treasuries, from as early as in the Carolingian age, but Cordez also examines many other objects which later made their ways into royal treasuries and Kuriositätenkabinette (16th century and beyond). He views those objects as cultural artefacts, but does not consider them in their own ‘subjectivity,’ as recent scholarship has increasingly endeavored, but his book goes back to 2010, and judging from the bibliography, it has not been revised or expanded much at all since then.