On February 28, 2025, U.S. President Donald Trump received Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy for a meeting that has since entered the annals of modern politics. It was a televised shouting match that never approached productive discussions. What is notable here, however, is Zelenskyy's entrance - the ceremonial welcome into the inner sanctum of American politics, the White House. Zelenskyy failed to wear attire that signaled proper respect to his host. He breached protocol by wearing a black military sweatshirt and pants rather than a suit. While his clothing honored his own people at war, it simultaneously violated established norms of diplomatic decorum. Interpreting this 2025 event through the lens of Emil Lauge Christensen's Adventus framework, one could argue that this was a profoundly flawed entry, one that could only foreshadow tension. By failing to perform his role in the ritual, Zelenskyy strained the symbolic grammar governing relations between the two countries.

I introduce this volume with a modern example to emphasize the continuing relevance of such scholarship on ritualized communication. The Middle Ages may be long gone, but protocol remains essential. It is the grammar of diplomacy, and a single misstep can carry serious consequences. Today, as in the past, high-ranking meetings are carefully choreographed for both participants and observers. These encounters convey internal and external messages, and etiquette can make or break the success of a meeting.

According to Christensen, a medieval ceremonial welcome comprised three phases: the host first assembled, then proceeded, and finally received and escorted the guest into the host's space (occursus, susception, ingressus). These ceremonies were sensorial events marked by bells, song, incense, holy water, feasting, color, and kissing. The guest, here, the papal legate, usually wore insignia identifying his authority: red garments, a white horse, and other symbols attached to the papacy. In Christensen's research, the hosts, whether monastic, episcopal, or royal, were obligated to receive the legatus a latere, the highest representative a medieval pope could send, how they did it was up for discussion.

The legate was, in effect, the pope in motion when the pope himself could not travel. Christensen underscores the magnitude of this symbolic presence and the meanings conveyed by such encounters: submission to or rebellion against papal authority. His case studies are well framed both chronologically and geographically, focusing on England between 1170 and 1250, years marked by civil war ("the Anarchy"), the Becket affair, the kingdom's enfeoffment to the papacy, and the issuance of Magna Carta.

Remaining close to the sources, Christensen reconstructs each adventus with meticulous attention to its immediate historical context, avoiding grand theories that sometimes distance ritual from lived experience. He demonstrates that ritual's impact lies close to the skin of participants and observers. There is something satisfying about this commitment to precise historicization rather than abstract theorization about ritual and consensus. After all, ritual often serves to "perform" consensus rather than produce it.

The volume is divided into two major parts. Part I defines core concepts: legates, ritual, symbolic communication, and establishes the interpretive framework for later case studies. Its three chapters examine: (1) the evolving figure of the papal legatus a latere; (2) the insignia and ritual gestures expressing papal and legatine authority; and (3) the prescriptive texts that instructed hosts on proper adventus protocol.

Part II (Narrating Legatine Adventus Ceremonies) turns to chronicle narratives. Each chapter analyzes how medieval writers described specific adventus events. Christensen examines: (1) Roger of Howden, whose service to ecclesiastical dignitaries and the king shaped his portrayal of legatine visits; (2) Gervase of Canterbury, who presented adventus events as contests between papal and royal authority; (3) Roger of Wendover, who wrote after England was enfeoffed to the pope and viewed both king and legate as oppressors; and (4) Matthew Paris, who insisted on the separation of religious and secular spheres and condemned the king's subservience to papal power. Two appendices close the volume: one presenting the Hostiensis's discussion of legatine insignia (red garment, white horse, gilded spurs), and another comparing Gilbertine and Cistercian ceremonial instructions.

The introduction poses some of the book's central questions: How did those outside Rome perceive the adventus of a legate? To what extent did these ceremonies incite dispute, adaptation, enthusiasm, indifference, or even horror? The book succeeds especially in Part II, where micro-historical analyses show how circumstances shaped each author's interpretation, whether reverential or hostile.

Roger of Howden served several wellplaced ecclesiastical dignitaries and eventually the king as a royal clerk around 1170. He also traveled extensively, following King Richard and his crusade. Christensen examines Roger's accounts of various legatine missions, emphasizing the importance of causality: did a king invite legates to help resolve an issue, or did the pope send them against the king? Analyzing both possibilities reveals the range of interpretations an author might produce, ranging from reverence to hostility.

Gervase of Canterbury wrote about an adventus at Canterbury Cathedral, where the Benedictine abbot also served as the archbishop of the see. Eventually, the chapter's wishes clashed with those of the abbotarchbishop. For Gervase, the arrival of legates offered an opportunity to depict the adventus as a power struggle between the pope's envoys - on the "good" side, and the king, whom he cast as the supporter of the "bad" abbotarchbishop.

Roger of Wendover, writing after England had been enfeoffed to the pope, adopted a more critical stance in his narrative of the arrival of Legate Nicholas, cardinal-bishop of Tusculum. For him, both king and papal legate were tyrants, and he lamented the oppression inflicted on the English people. Following Roger, Matthew Paris continued the St Albans chronicles. For Paris, religious and secular realms needed to remain separate, and he despised the king for his sycophantic submission to papal authority in English affairs in his description of the reception of Legate Otto de Tonengo.

This is a rich study, abundant in historiography and analysis. At times, however, the detail overwhelms the broader argument. One occasionally loses sight of the overarching "so what?" The cases are illuminating individually, but the study stops short of offering a synthetic conclusion. Christensen suggests the adventus may serve as a gauge of the reform papacy's performance but does not fully evaluate this claim. Did the adventus effectively further the papacy's goals? For whom was this performance intended? Kings could resist or reshape the ritual, or promote narratives that undermined papal authority.

Nevertheless, this volume, rich in examples and scholarly engagement, will satisfy readers interested in the medieval papacy (and its performative aspect) and the history of medieval England at a pivotal moment of its history.

Joëlle Rollo-Koster