Flodoard enjoys an uncontested position as the chief historian of Western Francia in the first half of the tenth century, partly because he had few rivals and partly because of his reputation for objectivity. His historical output was sizeable: a set of annals, his great history of the Church of Rheims with copious quotations and summaries of letters and documents, and a very long poem entitled the De triumphis Christi. This last work, which narrates the history of Christianity (largely concentrating on the history of the papacy), is now little read and has not been edited since the mid-nineteenth century. In spite of Flodoard's pre-eminence scholars have been reluctant to look at his work in the round, though in-depth studies exist of the Historia Remensis Ecclesiae (by Michel Sot) and of De triumphis (by P. C. Jacobsen); curiously also there has been relatively little effort to look at Flodoard's historical technique, while Flodoard's own extreme discretion makes it difficult to assess his motivation. Edward Roberts sets out to supply these lacks, and in the process does much more besides, analysing Flodoard's significance within the cathedral community at Rheims and re-evaluating his network of patrons and influences. After an introduction that outlines Flodoard's career and the main political events in France in the first half of the tenth century, Roberts goes into Flodoard's career in more detail, unpicking the challenges that he and the other canons of Rheims faced during the dispute over the see between Hugh of Vermandois and Artold which lasted from the 920s to the 940s, and reflecting on Flodoard's own political position and his probable loyalties. There follow chapters on each of the three main works of Flodoard's oeuvre, and also a chapter on his interest in visions and miracles that concentrates in particular on a minor work, the Visions of Flothilde, recounting visions experienced by a young girl living on one of the estates of the Church of Rheims in 940, a year of political turmoil. Roberts rereads Flodoard's annals to reassess what the historian has to say about how he was deprived of the land that he held from his church when Heribert of Vermandois made his young son Hugh archbishop in 925. Flodoard avoided outright critique of Heribert but did not disguise the harm that was done to him personally or to the cathedral community. Flodoard's activities in the 940s suggest support for Artold and in addition contacts with the church of Tours, and he helped Artold prepare for the Council of Ingelheim that confirmed his tenure of the see in 948. Archbishop Teotolo of Tours and Artold were two of Flodoard's patrons; even more significant was Archbishop Robert of Trier, the probable dedicatee of the Historia Remensis Ecclesiae and a recipient of the De triumphis. Flodoard's Historia was undertaken after the defeat of Hugh of Vermandois and it attempts to establish the Church's claims to the many properties that Hugh and his family had taken over from the see. As Roberts shows in detail, Flodoard pays particular attention to estates that had been seized in his careful compilation of extracts from charters; sites linked with the cult of St Remigius were especially significant. But the Historia also highlights the close relationship between the see of Rheims and Eastern Francia: Flodoard welcomed the activity of the Ottonians in support of Louis iv and of Artold. It was after his lifetime that Ottonian interest in Western Francia diminished, a factor which, as the author notes, helps to explain why the circulation of Flodoard's work is less extensive than it might have been. Even so, his De triumphis owes its survival to a copy made at St Augustine's in Canterbury, while a key manuscript of the Annals, which also contains the Visions of Flothilde, was owned by St Bénigne in Dijon by the twelfth century. Flodoard emerges from this account as a stronger personality and with greater powers of agency than he has hitherto been credited with; his debt to his ninth-century predecessors, notably Hincmar, was great, but he was able to develop his own historical voice. Indeed, a particular strength of this study is the care with which the author positions Flodoard between historical writing of the ninth century and that of the later tenth century and beyond: although he owed much to Carolingian traditions, he was also an innovator, especially in the Historia and the De triumphis. Overall, this is a richly detailed book that constantly rewards the reader with new insights.