This book presents a fine argument, executed with the best methods of erudition. It consists of a critical analysis of sources concerning the fifteenth century registers of the Bishop of Troyes's officialité (ecclesiastical tribunal), which are particularly well preserved and diverse. These completely unexplored sources are referred to constantly and carefully, and a small selection of them are reproduced as documentary samples. The study draws on a comprehensive bibliography, and the book is a pleasure to read. It also has an index. The choice of chronological limits is well justified. The author takes as a beginning the Fourth Lateran Council in 1215, which gave marriage its normative bearings, especially regarding incest and spousal consent, but which did not condemn clandestine marriages. She pursues her analysis until the Council of Trent, which clearly condemned clandestine marriage in the decree Tametsi of 1563.

The choice of this region allows a relevant analysis of the subject. Among ecclesiastical judicial sources, those of the diocesan officialité of Troyes have the advantage of great diversity. They include case registers, sentence registers, and account books of fines. They have not been the object of an exhaustive study except for the thesis of l'Ecole nationale des Chartes by Christelle Walravens (1995), which has remained unpublished. Thankfully, these archives will soon be available online. Taking the Champagne as an example of a laboratory of ideas was a sound approach, especially as the author has compared these sources with those of the neighboring diocese of Châlons-sur-Marne. We can wonder, however, why the officialité of Reims is absent from the census of the sources, although it is true that only a few fragments survive, those studied by Véronique Beaulande in the context of excommunication. Her works are cited in the bibliography.

Concerning the method, judicial practice sources are constantly played off against normative sources, including the Synodal Statutes of Troyes, which offered the clergy and the faithful the institutional opinion of the church on marriage, and the treatises of canon law, by Gratian, and also by Hostiensis, Guillaume Durand, and Panormitanus. The theologians of the thirteenth century and the church fathers are also examined. This cultural range was necessary because the bishops' sermons of the time were filled with quotations justifying their views. Following recent studies on secular justice, the author does not neglect the point of view of the royal courts, which claimed, at this time, to regulate matrimonial unions by censuring sanctioning offences such as adultery, considered by the judges of Parliament as a “royal case.” She has, therefore, consulted the Grands Jours de Troyes (1398, 1402, 1406, 1411) and the royal ordinances. She cannot be blamed for not having penetrated further into the archives of the Parliament of Paris, which lacks the headings necessary for a targeted search by theme. The focus on the gap between theory and practice, in both royal and church judicial decisions, supports the argument of the book.

The author's aim is less to write a new formal study of marriage in the Middle Ages than it is to evaluate the matrimonial behaviors being disciplined by the ecclesiastical and royal institutions. On this matter, McDougall's intervention joins the new wave of research on the history of officialités, following, in particular, the recent work of Carole Avignon on clandestine weddings in the diocese of Chartres and Rouen, and that of Martine Charageat on Saragosse, which the author knows and cites. This fresh point of view challenges the so-called “crisis of marriage” of the fifteenth century. The author states it clearly in the introduction and develops it in a very convincing manner in the five chapters that follow. The first chapter treats theoretical positions on marriage and remarriage, whether as a matter of law, theology, or other cultural writing such as sermons. The second chapter deals with bigamous spouses and the ways that society perceived them, and the third addresses the problem of abandoned wives. The two last chapters consider who committed bigamy, and why bigamy was prosecuted.

These lines of inquiry contradict the vision of a certain number of historians for whom the sacraments are inviolable, imposed on society by the church once and for all. However, the concept of marriage must be historicized, just as the sacrament itself has been enriched. When the imposition of monogamy was proclaimed in facie Ecclesiae, critiques of bigamy multiplied under the pressure of church and society. To this point of view, justifiably defended by the book, I might add that the rising state played an important role in France. The king imposed his power by relying on the matrimonial cell constituted by the husband, the wife, and the children. This mononuclear cell was supposed to be stable as well as individualized, in order to be administrated, pay taxes, and, perhaps, be judged. It was, therefore, impossible to permit clandestine marriages and the bigamy (in the modern sense of the term) that could result. Punishment against what was now considered a crime against the state of marriage and against the activist church was severe.

The problem is to know how society came to subscribe to this shift. We can measure society's engagement with the authorities by means of denunciations, but, unfortunately, we have little data of this type. Although they are referred to in the book multiple times, they should, perhaps, have been treated more comprehensively to show their importance. They are part of a general judicial and religious acculturation, because the condemnation of bigamy seems to have been quite rapidly assimilated by the faithful. In the end, the cases identified are few in number, even if the historian of law must always bear in mind the “dark figure of crime.” We must, therefore, consider the global aspirations and moral requirements of society regarding values such as fidelity, linked to the marriage vow. What expectations of truth require wariness of deception at all costs?

These expectations were, perhaps, enhanced by the successive censuses that now marked the lives of the kingdom's subjects. We return, through these questions, to the medieval manner of norm assimilation. Certainly, the fear of sanction played a part, because bigamy was persecuted in the same way as robbery. But this evolution of marriage, which was in no way a crisis, was more related to the contexts of purity and reform, of which the mid-fifteenth century gave tangible signs. These changes should have been given more emphasis. It is possible that the Champagne was a privileged site for this reformist ideal, particularly because its parish leadership was very developed and its clergy well trained, as shown in studies of small village schools (Sylvette Guilbert) and of the college of Dormans, which provided priests to Champagne (Thierry Kouamé). These studies could have enriched the cultural aspects of the book.

In sum, the morals of the parishioners were far from being in decline; quite the contrary, even if preachers and judges peddled litanies evoking the Devil! Therefore, as the author says, a proper “matrimonial order” took shape: an ordo in the Latin sense of the term. Upon it rested the social structure, in which clergy and laypeople had an ever more elevated idea of marriage. Was this, however, the case in all social milieus? The book does not ask the question, because the community of the officialités, other than the clergy, rarely included nobles. The use of favorites, on the royal model, remained or became one of the nobles' privileges, allowing them to escape justice. Although not really bigamy, it was clearly a way to get around the principles related to marriage that were being established.

The few suggestions offered in this review serve only to emphasize the further lines of study suggested by this fine book, which is based on abundant evidence of lived experience, and which transcends received ideas.