As Ryan Lavelle observes in the introduction to Places of Contested Power: Conflict and Rebellion in England and France, 830–1150, the idea of a place gaining an identity as a locus of contested power has been examined by many historians of the early Middle Ages, drawing specific attention to Gerd Althoff's study of the fortress of Breisach (“Breisach-ein Refugium für Rebellen im früheren Mittelalter?” in Archäologie und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends in Südwestdeutschland, ed. Hans Nuber and Karl Schmid [1990], 457–71). The purpose of Lavelle's study is to demonstrate how specific places gained a historical association with conflict, and how the choice of specific places to contest power can illustrate the concerns of the parties involved with a particular focus on northeastern and northwestern France, as well as Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman England, with occasional glances east to the German realm. The volume covers the period from the early ninth to the mid-twelfth century. Lavelle's investigation is based largely on narrative works, particularly The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and the histories of Flodoard, Richer of Rheims, William of Jumièges, and Orderic Vitalis.

The volume is organized into eight thematic chapters, with a lengthy introduction and a brief conclusion. Lavelle uses the introduction to lay out the rationale for examining conflicts through the prism of the places where they took place. In chapter 1, Lavelle discusses the varieties of conflicts that can be associated with a particular place, with a focus on those involving resistance against ruling authorities. In this context, Lavelle draws extensively on the model of the “Germanic right to resistance” developed by Fritz Kern. When justifying his use of the Kern model, however, Lavelle slips in his treatment of the sources. He mistranslates, for example, a key a passage from the Chronicon of Bishop Thietmar of Merseburg (d. 1018) in a way that suggests that prelate accepted the legitimacy of a rebellion against King Henry II of Germany (48). Lavelle then leaves out the very next sentence in the passage in which Thietmar makes clear that any resistance to royal authority was an affront to God.

In a brief second chapter, Lavelle makes the reasonable point that a place chosen by one side as the site of a conflict could have ideological or symbolic importance in addition to straightforward military considerations. He then turns to a discussion in chapter 3 of the idea of contesting power in “public places” (93). Lavelle argues, for example, that rebels frequently sought to gain control of royal estates both to stake a claim to legitimacy and to gain supplies. However, the argument seems largely based on conjecture: contemporary sources rarely connected the seizure of these places to claims of legitimacy.

The fourth chapter addresses the contestation of power between the ruler and those who supposedly held “lordship,” which Lavelle identifies as “the right to a warrior retinue” (138). The main subject matter of the chapter is the contestation over control of property, and the ability of governing authorities to seize the assets of rebels. However, the examples chosen by Lavelle may not do justice to the question, or get at the heart of the problem of whether kings and princes had both the legitimate authority and actual power to confiscate lands in a systematic way.

Lavelle continues his focus on aristocratic opposition to kings and regional princes in chapter five with an examination of the role of building and holding of castles by aristocrats. One misses here an engagement with the work of Charles Coulson regarding the right to build fortifications in France and the French principalities. Perhaps as a consequence, Lavelle treats royal and princely control over fortifications as something of an optical illusion, despite the long periods in which governing authorities exercised strict control over both their construction and possession. Lavelle does not demonstrate the ideological importance of any specific fortifications in the manner of, for example, Althoff's discussion of Breisach. Typical, in this regard, is Lavelle's claim that Odo of Bayeux's seizure of Rochester castle in 1088 should be seen in symbolic rather than simply in strategic terms. It is noteworthy that, in contrast to Breisach, no contemporary sources make this connection.

In chapter 6, Lavelle turns his attention to urban centers. Lavelle states that his goal is to identify links between “urban oligarchies” and unrest in towns, and concomitantly to “explore the extent to which the urban geography—and links to the geography of the surrounding countryside—of towns and cities determined the actions [sic]” (215). What follows is a list of towns in which some chroniclers report violence took place. But Lavelle offers no evidence for oligarchies operating in these towns. There is also no clear demonstration of the role of town, as a category, or of a specific town, as having a symbolic or ideological connection to the contestation of power.

The seventh chapter turns to a discussion of conflict and violence in the context of sacred places. Lavelle devotes considerable attention to the political aspects of ecclesiastical office holding, including the exercise of violence, but he could have been more specific when tying the numerous examples to broader issues or to the enormous historiography on this topic. Overall, this chapter, relative to the preceding, does not feel quite as connected to the stated objectives of the book. The eighth and final chapter eschews an examination of a particular class of place, and instead considers “the wider landscape and movement within it” (278). Here Lavelle devotes particular attention to the battlefield of Val-és-Dunes (1047), which, he suggests, was chosen because of “both sides’ need to represent themselves to each other” (322). However, this conclusion is based on a series of conjectures about both the actual location of the fighting and the supposed existence of a Norman ducal estate on the site, neither of which can be demonstrated conclusively.

Lavelle has identified an important question relating to the history of conflict in the early and high Middle Ages. Readers undoubtedly will appreciate the considerable information that he has provided regarding conflicts that took place in a variety of categories of locations. However, there are also significant problems in the treatment of both the sources and the historiography that limit the effectiveness of Lavelle's argument with regard to the symbolic or ideological importance of specific places as the locus of contested authority.