Andrew G. Miller’s microhistory explores the two-year struggle (1292–94) over the church of Thame, Oxfordshire, during the reign of Edward I. It is a fascinating and revealing case in which the rival claimants to this rich benefice (which they claimed on the basis of papal provisions) employed various strategies. Both claimants were connected to powerful men who lent their support and muscle during the protracted struggle: Edward St John was a royal clerk and son of Edward I’s household knight John St John; Thomas Sutton was the nephew of the bishop of Lincoln, Oliver Sutton. Violence, recourse to both secular and ecclesiastical courts, propaganda campaigns, and excommunications all feature in this conflict, though it was eventually settled through the king’s mediation. The result of the various attempts to gain the church is that a plethora of records survive, all of which have now (with the addition of Miller’s appendix) been printed or at least calendared. The chief sources are the memoranda rolls of the bishop of Lincoln and records of the ecclesiastical court of Canterbury (the Arches), but Chancery Rolls provide additional material. Miller thus has a wealth of documentation through which to bring the dispute to life. He does so very effectively.

The book is structured chronologically, a necessary measure if the reader is to understand the complexities of the narrative and the measures taken by each side to secure the wealthy benefice and its church. In the introduction, Miller sets out the sources used to piece together this microhistory and explains why the conflict provides a valuable and informative snapshot of late thirteenth-century England. Thus, this one well-documented struggle reveals the importance of “feudal retinues” to both bishops and knights, the various means of power-brokering they used, the concepts of masculinity prevalent at the time, the rhetorical and legal strategies employed, and the power dynamics at play in England at the close of the thirteenth century. Miller hopes this microhistory will “help identify the nuances and mechanisms and cultural attitudes lurking within the complexities of the macro world” (17). Having explained microhistory as a historical method, Miller concludes the introduction with a brief outline of events, which also serves as the outline of the book.

Chapter 1 sets the scene by introducing the protagonists, describing the vast diocese of Lincoln, placing Thame in its geographical and administrative environment, and clarifying the nature of episcopal power and papal provisions in this period. The next three chapters follow the narrative, each focusing on one of the St John party’s violent attempts—some more successful than others—to take the church of Thame by force. Part of the value of Miller’s analysis of this contest will be to introduce students to a range of documentary sources and the various legal and extralegal options available in the reign of Edward I. Advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students will benefit from studying a single case in which so many tactics are employed. Throughout, Miller helpfully makes clear the nature of the documents he is using at any given stage in the narrative, thus elucidating the information provided in Sutton’s episcopal register, the records of the ecclesiastical court at Canterbury, the parliament rolls, royal writs, and so on. The discussions of how different legal processes worked, the nature of medieval testimony, and how personal negotiations functioned and interacted will be informative for students. Moreover, Miller has painstakingly pieced together the bishop’s itinerary to show the efforts Oliver Sutton went to in support of his nephew’s case. The maps provided bring out the bishop’s exhausting schedule in pursuit of the benefice, as well as his meetings with the king (though some of these must remain speculative). At the same time, the direct and violent acts committed over the course of three years—three men were killed and many more injured and humiliated—are explored in detail.

Chapter 4 works best as a standalone chapter. It addresses the most violent of the attacks, during which two hundred armed men reportedly stormed Thame church, and its aftermath. Here Miller builds upon his articles on clerical masculinity and symbolic violence to contextualize the humiliation suffered by clerics involved in this dispute, and a related attack on the bishop’s deer. The removal of clerics’ hoods and sleeves is thus shown to be a thought-through attempt to publicly dishonor and mock clergy in retaliation for previous events in this struggle. In chapter 5, Miller addresses the “starvation-siege” carried out by the bishop's men and the “propaganda war” waged at the same time. The final chapter wraps up the narrative, dealing with the peace-brokering, arbitration, and compromise that eventually brought the conflict to a close. Though the Suttons secured the prebend for Thomas Sutton, Edward St John was presented with another rich benefice.

There is no doubt that this fascinating conflict is worthy of such detailed examination (I dedicated a chapter of my own book on excommunication to it), and Miller has produced a microhistory that deserves a wide audience. He emphasizes that laymen and churchmen possessed “separate identities,” as is demonstrated by the nature of the humiliations perpetrated against the clerics, and thus questions “decades of practically canonized scholarship which asserts that … there was no longer a separate identity between clerics and laymen” (147–8) in this period. Yet this study equally shows that there can be no arbitrary division between those who study ecclesiastical history and those who focus on secular politics and law. The acts of the two parties can only be understood if secular and ecclesiastical laws, customs, and tactics are brought into dialogue. Scholars and students with quite different intellectual interests will thus benefit from Miller’s exploration of this wonderful snapshot of late thirteenth-century England.