Nicola F. McDonald and W. M. Ormrod (eds.), Rites of passage: cultures of transition in the fourteenth century. (York: York Medieval Press, 2004.) Pages vii+176. £45.00

Continuity and Change 22 (1), 2007, 171183. f 2007 Cambridge University Press Printed in the United Kingdom doi:10.1017/S026841600700584X Nicola F. McDonald and W. M. Ormrod (eds.), Rites of passage: cultures of transition in the fourteenth century. Since folklorist Arnold van Gennep invented the concept of rites de passage in around 1907, anthropologists, sociologists, historians and scholars of various stripes have found his idea invaluable in helping them to interpret ritual process and the life cycle in a vast range of societies. Mark Ormrods essay on the boy-kings Edward III and Richard II and their struggle for regal manhood, Pat Cullums on the initiation rites of the clergy, Sharon Wellss on food, noblemen and the youths who served them in domestic settings, Helen Phillipss and Isabel Daviss examination of knightly coming-of-age and its tribulations in romances and Gowers Confessio amantis (c. 1390) and Sarah Kays Lacanian reading of Froissarts Dits amoreux (1360s1370s), which interprets initiation as an internal psychological process rather than an outward rite, all t this category. The rituals of feasting and dining represent repetitive performances of noble manhood, with youths and adult males playing separate roles, rather than a transition to it. [...]it is not accurate to speak of food as a rite of passage (p. 81): rather, food may be employed in such rites.