Those who enjoyed Laura Gowing's first book, Domestic Dangers: Women, Words and Sex in Early Modern London, are likely to be delighted by her new work, which uses similar material to explore different areas of women's lived experience in early modern England. Domestic Dangers, always eagerly devoured by students, interpreted the language of insult that was a feature of what Gowing calls the “narratives of litigation.” These are the testimonies of court cases. For Domestic Dangers she examined Consistory Court cases and what they can tell us about honor and reputation among ordinary people, but especially women.

Common Bodies uses court cases again, but it ranges much more widely than Domestic Dangers. Material is drawn from different types of courts and from many geographical regions of England. The first half of the book explores different aspects of “the politics of touch” (as one chapter is titled). Thus the beginning of the book considers questions about intimacy for single women, and then we move through marriage toward childbearing. The last three chapters are mainly concerned with pregnancy and childbirth. Some insights are provided into same-sex relationships between women. Gowing writes engagingly and eloquently. It is refreshing to find the body treated as a corporeal entity rather than an ethereal substance. Issues of power between women are given judicious treatment.

Undoubtedly, these court cases offer rich insights to readers, for example, when analyzing childbed ritual and gossiping circles. But to those who have read and researched in these areas already, not much of the book will really come as a surprise. There are many areas in which such sources are silent—did early modern women suffer from premenstrual tension or postnatal depression? What about women's discussions and conflicts about breast-feeding—an experience that is both individual and yet open to endless discussion about commonalities? The highly individual and subjective nature of bodily experience, of course, makes these subjects extraordinarily difficult to document.

Inevitably, the court evidence pitches us toward conflict, tension, and confrontation rather than enlightening us about aspects such as the social value of maternity in an era when the health and survival of both mother and infant were less than assured. There are pitfalls with the use of court evidence, and these are insufficiently spelled out in the book. As was made more than obvious to me when I carried out jury service this year, such testimonials are less a window onto lived experience than a crack opened up on a highly orchestrated story that will work to the advantage of the teller. We need to know the elements of this orchestration at several levels—how do court procedures affect the telling of the tale? What witnesses are missing? What about those who rail against the conventions of society and the court in which they are forced to tell their tale? How much modified is their story? How significant was the performance, the bearing, and the demeanor of the women who speak here? To what extent did the circumstances foster a “culture of denial” about pregnancy that makes it unsurprising that it was a state apprehended but slowly? With the fragmentary nature of the sources available to us, the answers to these questions are unlikely to ever be known, but I would have found Gowing's approach more convincing if she had drawn our attention not only to what the narrative structures of these cases can tell us but to the more basic shortcomings of these sources.

Given the emphasis placed on “touch” in the title, there could have been more examination of what touch meant in the early modern era. When persons thought that being touched by the monarch would cure them of scrofula, how else was touch perceived, and what were the historical antecedents of those perceptions? The history of medicine and religion might provide some broad openings into understanding what touch meant to the ordinary person.

These reservations aside, this book is a fine contribution to the field of historical interest in the body and social relations generally. Like Gowing's previous work, it will be read with interest by all students of the early modern era.