The essays in this collection use contemporary disability studies to investigate attitudes toward disabilities in the Middle Ages. Eyler (English, Columbus State University, Georgia) notes that most of the authors use Irina Metzler's Disability in the Middle Ages as a template for their specific research. The majority of the articles draw from a wide range of fiction, such as Icelandic sagas, Anglo-Saxon and French poems, the grail quest, Chaucer and Langland. Others look at miracle stories, legal codes and the records of Louis IX's hospital for the blind. The goal is to shed modern conceptions and preconceptions about medieval thought in order to discover the many ways in which disability was viewed. The authors make evident that only rarely was disability seen as a divine punishment and that circumstances often dictated the social response to disability. Annotation ©2010 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)