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A Companion to Wace (review)

It is always useful to have the articles of a distinguished scholar collected together in an easily accessible form, and this volume is no exception. The essays are divided into two groups, the first of which deals with feuding and the second with peacemaking. The last two essays devoted to the latter are very technical, involving detailed discussion of the theories of Duby, which, as White demonstrates, cannot be applied across the whole of northern France, nor to other centuries than the one on which Duby was working. More interesting is the essay entitled ‘Inheritances and Legal Arguments in Western France, 1050–1160’ where White successfully picks holes in the arguments of Milsom and Palmer, giving chapter and verse from his own preferred region of Western France. Of much more general interest is the essay on the settlement of disputes by compromise in western France in the eleventh century. White shows how rare trial by ordeal and trial by combat actually were. Most litigants preferred to reach an agreement with their adversary, even if combat or ordeal had been agreed at an earlier stage. Some litigants simply failed to appear, while others withdrew and lost their case. Most, however, succeeded in reaching a compromise. Inevitably Professor White’s arguments are often based on the same evidence, so that, after reading the long first article ‘Feuding and Peace-Making in the Touraine around 1100’, the reader will be familiar with many of the cases which reappear in other articles later. As the book is not really designed to be read straight through, this is not as important as it might be in a monograph. The volume’s importance lies in the availability of the articles which cover different though usually closely related topics. Professor White’s scholarship is obvious in the immensely detailed notes which accompany every article and which contain a huge number of useful references. There is no bibliography as such but there is a short index. Those interested in early medieval France will find this collection a most useful research tool.