Though we may often think of the later medieval period as an era during which the written word was ascendant, the role of memory remained as strong as ever. Memory was particularly relevant in the legal arena, given how rules of evidence insisted on the importance of witness testimony. Wherever testimony transcribed in court registers survives to this day, it provides insights into the patterns of daily life and mental structures of the past. The records of private suits in the registers of the church courts of Canterbury and York offer especially privileged repositories of witness testimony. These cases preserve the voices and memories of a multitude of non-elite men and women, albeit in a form distorted by the nature of the legal process.

This book is an ambitious study of one aspect of that testimony, namely, the manner in which knowledge of the past was formed and preserved in the memories of ordinary men and women. Although the study highlights women's testimony and the gendered forms of memory, the arguments of the book range across an impressive array of related topics. Among other things Kane studies the testimony of both men and women in order to establish the baseline comparison needed for developing a full understanding of the subject. Across the book as a whole, the reader has the rewarding experience of engaging directly with the lives and memories of non-elite women and men.

Following the introduction, which provides an orientation to the book's subject and theoretical premises, the first chapter explores the impact of pastoral theology. The pastoral emphasis on remembering the misdeeds of one's past influenced the formation of the body of rules that governed witness depositions in canon law courts. Rules of evidence permitted women's testimony but sought to limit it to domains stereotypically associated with feminine activity. Chapter ii considers questions associated with the credibility or authority of women's testimony and surveys some of the misogynistic tropes used to exclude that testimony. Chapters iii and iv explore how witnesses associated their memories with elements of the environment and with events, information provided as witnesses were asked to explain how they retained their memories. Given gendered differences in life experiences, we find variations in the range of objects or markers to which men and women attached their memories. Chapter v focuses on memories related to marriage and kinship. In chapter vi, the author turns to writing, an alternative medium for accessing information about the past. Chapter vii, finally, considers memories of landscapes. Various threads weave longitudinally across the chapters, including those related to gendered differences in testimony and memory. A persistent theme arises from the fact that although men's testimony predominated, female testimony was important in cases where women had privileged access to information. A particularly fascinating theme, especially in later chapters, concerns women's memories that appear off-stage, in situations where male witnesses attest to knowledge that was curated by women.

The book has two major premises. The first concerns the manner in which evidence from the church courts can contribute to our understanding of patriarchy and gender norms. Here, the major contribution arises from Kane's ability to describe how these norms operated among ordinary folk. Given the hard-edged forms of patriarchy that existed at the time, one might have predicted that women played at best a small role in providing witness testimony. Yet, the very fact that life experiences were distinctly gendered ensured that women's testimony could be essential to proving a claim in certain spheres, such as those related to virginity, marriage, sex, childbirth and defamation. The second premise, therefore, is that women's testimony appears in court records despite the existence of structures designed to keep it out. Litigation is fundamentally contentious. Even in situations where the parties consisted solely of men, both parties had an incentive to draw on women's knowledge in situations where it helped their case. As noted earlier, this could be achieved by subtly erasing the women who supplied the knowledge, but even in those cases we can sometimes discern the original source of information. What emerges from Kane's discussion is an understanding of how patriarchy, as a system of power, is not absolute. Doors could be opened, at times, to allow the voices of women. Women participated fully in the procedure, and did so with eyes open. As actors, they used the occasion to insert their own life experiences into the written record.

The book's arguments are inspired by the etic categories of gender theory, leaving readers to wonder how women and men might have construed their own gender norms. On occasion, the density of the prose requires careful reading. Structurally, the complex interaction between the two premises of the book creates some interpretive challenges. As noted above, Kane uses church court records to demonstrate the entrenched nature of patriarchal systems and gender norms. This premise interacts uneasily with threads associated with conveying the second premise, namely, that women could and did voice memories in court and that those moments, cumulatively, worked to undermine the very structures designed to keep them out. Occasionally, the argument pivots abruptly between the first and second premises, requiring a certain nimbleness on the part of the reader.

The study is grounded in an exceptionally rich body of original research. The most rewarding sections are those where Kane offers illuminating discussions of individual records and their contexts, progressively adding new layers of evidence to the compelling case she builds across the book. The argument draws on a substantial scholarly literature, ranging from bodies of theory to regional monographs. Though the book is not intended to be a study of law per se, the author displays an impressive command of legal history. This is a work of exceptional scholarship and deserves to be widely read.