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To Have and to Hold: Marrying and Its Documentation in Western Christendom, 400–1600 (review)

distrusts syntheses that imply causation without proving it. Not surprisingly, his conclusion is titled “Against Current Fashion.” The surprise lies rather in the traditional moderation of his recommendations for the proper conduct of historical inquiry. Historians should avoid propagandizing or any claim to exclusive truth; they should cross disciplinary lines while respecting disciplinary boundaries; and they must attend to evidence. He hopes “that the conceptual devices offered . . . in this book will be taken seriously both by those who are attempting to read works of history in a critical frame of mind and by those engaged in the difacult task of writing history in an epistemologically responsible mode . . . [without being] paralyzed by the uncertainties of historical knowledge” (167). Taking these recommendations seriously does not make that challenge easier.