The Cistercian Reform and the Art of the Book in Twelfth-Century France

This book analyses the manuscripts of the Cîteaux, copied and illustrated during a period of intense reform at the monastery, that demonstrate the interdependence between art, liturgy, and reform.

Reilly Diane :

Diane Reilly is Associate Professor of Art History at Indiana University, Bloomington. Her first book, The Art of Reform in Eleventh-Century Flanders: Gerard of Cambrai, Richard of Saint-Vanne and the Saint-Vaast Bible (Brill, 2006) explored connections between art, politics and monastic reform.

"Reilly's exemplary interdisciplinary work demonstrates how monastic artists and liturgists made tangible links between what they heard, painted, and read, and it shows how these connections shaped the religious experience of early Cistercian monks."
- Martha G. Newman, The University of Texas at Austin, Speculum, 96/1, January 2021

"This book is a valuable contribution to our understanding of the spiritual project that animated the early life of Cîteaux, founded in 1098."
- Monica Brînzei, sehepunkte.de, May 2019. Read the full review online

"This volume contributes to our understanding of the liturgical and mental world of the early Cistercian monks and to the oral and aural community associated with early Cîteaux... It is a welcome contribution."
- Constance Hoffman Berman, Mediaevistik 32, 2019

"Diane J. Reilly’s study provides a productive interpretation of familiar material, not by applying new methodologies but rather by insisting on the importance of the liturgy as the context for and within which these manuscripts were made."
- Jeffrey F. Hamburger, Medium Ævum, Vol. LXXXVIII, No. 2, 2019