This volume is a collection of essays mainly written for a conference held at the University of Lille in 2010. Its principal aim was to promote the necessary dialogue between history and archaeology (p. 16). Therefore, it is surely no accident that the first item to appear in Gaillard's preface (written with Charles Bonnet), and the one that recurs most frequently throughout the book, is the Topographie chrétienne des cites de la Gaule. All of the essays, in different ways, engage with this concern, by focusing on the hermeneutical couple ‘persistence and integration’. The collection falls into three parts. It begins with ‘Les Héritages antiques’ (pp. 21–147), where Roman law, diplomatic relationships, food system, episcopal models and royal kingship are the main subjects treated. Then, part ii (‘La Ville chrétienne’, pp. 151–288) consider some Gallic cities (Arles, Autun, Puy-en-Velay, Tournay, Lyon, Vienne, the Rhone and Saone valleys, Saint Quentin) as case studies able to prove the usefulness of a intertwined analysis of both archaeological evidences and hagiographic literature. The book ends with a third part (‘Les Cadres de la vie chrétienne’, pp. 291–509) which explores the presence of the Christian way of life in the countryside and in the monastic environment. Critical assessment of the individual papers is not possible within the format of the present review. Instead, I will limit myself to some comments on the volume as a whole. Whereas each essay can be read with profit on its own terms, the degree to which they contribute to the overall theoretical aim of the volume varies. Several of them deal with materials and topics that are arguably relevant to the question of the ‘Christianisation’ of Gaul but do not make an attempt to relate the analyses that they offer to issues at the more general level of theoretical reflection. However, much more could be said about this rich volume. Above all else, and through a variety of examples stretching from the fourth to the ninth century, it makes plain the complexity of the subject and the need for a further discussion. One aspect of this is surely the high level of manipulation that can be seen in the hagiographical dossier and the almost continuous refurbishment of buildings. The processes of re-usage seems to be much more similar than we usually think. In one of the clearest pieces, Marie-Céline Isaïa shows how the selection, adaptation and transmission of a biography may be understood if we look carefully at the archaeological evidence: the life of a saint bishop may be conceived with the clear intention of influencing the Christian topography of a late antique city (p. 129).

‘Apprécier l'empreinte du christianisme en Gaule’ (p. 521): thus Stéphane Lebecq closes his lucid and comprehensive concluding remarks. Read collectively, the essays in this volume clarify what it was to become and then be Christian in Gaul, exploring the particularity of lived realities, understood at concrete times and places, as well as the seemingly timeless literary constructions of Christianities that the modern world has inherited from this past.