Extract
Commander of the Heavenly Host, intercessor on behalf of humankind, guardian angel, and conveyor of souls to heaven: St. Michael, Archangel of the Lord, is assigned numerous offices in the Judeo–Christian tradition. Richard F. Johnson's short book provides an examination of the establishment and diffusion of the legends of St. Michael in medieval England by drawing on a wide range of narratives from biblical accounts to references in preaching manuals. Yet the central text for Johnson's analysis is ‘De appritione Sancti Michaelis’ (BHL 5948), the hagiographic foundation myth of the Mount Gargano cultic site, which is printed and translated in an appendix. The book has four appendices altogether: an annotated bibliographical list of (textual) references to St. Michael, a motif index, and an essay on iconographical representations of the archangel in medieval England. All of these are helpful and interesting, and they underscore the usefulness of St. Michael the Archangel in Medieval English Legend as a brief and clearly structured overview of Archangel's role in medieval English texts.