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Reviews 249 she claims, subversive but rather validates and extends the hierarchical norms. Thus the debate this volume aims to excite begins in its very own pages. It is well worth reading by all interested in the history, language and literature of early m o d e m Germany, and indeed by those challenged or invigorated by a discussion of gendered culture. Jennifer Evans Department of Germanic Studies University of Sydney Thompson, Michael, The Medieval Hall: The Basis of Secular Domestic Life, 600-1600 AD, Aldershot, Scolar Press, 1995; cloth; pp. xii, 212; 98 b/w illustrations; R.R.P. £29.50. Michael Thompson utilises archaeological, artistic, literary and historical sources to create this sociologie of the medieval hall. The resulting book is an impressive achievement, one that can serve as a model for similar studies, and one that is unique in its subject matter. The focus is on England, but Thompson makes interesting comparisons with the square houses of the Amerindians of the Pacific Northwest, the great lodges of Melanesia and the megaron of ancient Greece. More substantial than these comparisons is the treatment of the medieval hall in France and Germany; this treatment reveals the uniqueness of the type of hall that emerged in England. The medieval hall had the following defining characteristics: it was not a communal building but belonged to an individual; it was a venue for meals, feasts, entertainments and secular rituals, but people ordinarily did not cook or sleep in it. Thompson illustrates the importance of the hall in the early history of Britain by citing Beowulf and The Wanderer, the first demonstrating the merry life in the mead-hall, the second highlighting the misery of the warrior banished from it. The secular literature from France and Germany likewise documents the hall's importance on the continent, but here the hall evolved differently; it was constructed on thefirstfloor and not the ground floor, it had fireplaces with chimneys to supply heat and it had a ceiling. The Saxon hall on the other hand tended to be on the ground floor with a central hearth for heat and consequently an open timber roof with slits for the smoke to escape. After the Conquest the Norman kings initially built halls in the continental style, but eventually the older, more primitive Saxon style pervaded with a few architectural refinements such as the louvred 250 Reviews lantern to permit the smoke to escape while keeping the elements out. Thompson convincingly argues that the popularity of the older style was in part a function of archaism; Geoffrey of Monmouth's celebration of King Arthur and the subsequent popularity of the Arthurian cycle, in Thompson's words (p. 101), 'helped to prolong the life of a secular building that was absurdly archaic by Continental standards where it was only retained for bams, farmhouses, and market halls'. Elsewhere (p. 194) Thompson suggests that this might have been 'a triumph of patriotism over common sense'. The hall was the focal point for the large medieval households of kings and of secular and ecclesiastical lords. Of the four functions of these households, 'provision of food, personal service of the members to the lord, religious duties and hospitality' (p. 115), three occurred in the hall. Because of the close association between the household and the hall, the decline of the household meant the decline of the hall. Thompson cites evidence revealing the decline in the size of royal and noble households in the sixteenth century, and he also notes the retreat to smaller rooms within the castle complex. This part of his argument seems sound, but I am not convinced by his claim that both the decline and the retreat were the results of Renaissance individualism a la mode de Burckhardt. This is one of the few blemishes in the book. The illustrations are excellent, and even if he does not always keep his promise (p. x) to avoid measurement and abstruse vocabulary, he does it enough to make this very readable book accessible to a wide audience. A. Lynn Martin Department of History University of Adelaide Walsham, Alexandra, Church Papists: Catholicism, Conformity and Confessional Polemic in Early Modern England (The Royal Historical Society...

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