Having a university education and a tourist's focus I bought this book seeking a broad view of Frankish rule to "flesh out" an upcoming visit to the area. I learned a great deal about the conditional nature of noble gifts to monasteries (the noble family often retained beneficial use of the land for generations) but I did not expect such close and professional attention to recounting the evidence supporting this and other aspects of the author's presentation on the Frankish world. Still, what I learned added to my store of information and I will use it when I look at castles and monasteries on my tour.



From the standpoint of scholarly research and writing, I do have a great deal of interest in the Middle Ages and I was also interested in seeing what a "modern" take on the period and on a historian's methods would show. For me, the writing often belabors a point and the text reads like a loosely reworked dissertation.