The Fee Tail and the Common Recovery in Medieval England 1176–1502 by Joseph Biancalana (review)

REVIEWS 206 to couch their objectives in terms that avoided references to rebellion against legitimate authority, even during times of military conflict with the monarchy. Roberts’s essay on Huguenot petitions, for example, argues that the Protestants’ use of legal means to handle their grievances was part of their strategy to legitimize themselves and portray themselves as loyal, law-abiding subjects of the crown. Protestant identity was also defined in reaction to Catholic polemics and was thus in part an external construct. There were competing narratives between Catholics and Huguenots that used historical references to the early Christian Church, Christian martyrology, and the Albigensian Crusades, and there was thus an important Catholic contribution to the development of Protestant identity . In the early stages comparisons of Protestant martyrs to the martyrs of the early Church were delicately articulated to avoid the possible comparisons of the French crown to Roman despots that might logically follow. On the other hand, the Catholic state sought to deny martyr status to the Huguenots by executing them like common criminals by hanging rather than burning them as heretics. Much of the institutional structure of the Protestant Church in France was likewise a response to external pressure. The essays by Mark Greengrass, Karin Maag, and Martin Dinges all show that much of the cohesiveness of French Protestantism was a result of the need for mutual support, poor relief, and the training of ministers in an environment that was often hostile. Such networks were both formal, ranging from local consistories to national synods, as well as universities for the training of ministers. But as the essay by Greengrass shows, could also be highly effective on an informal basis through personal letters and letters between communities. Mentzer and Spicer have gathered several very interesting essays that offer new insight into the history of the Reformation in France. These essays show that the Protestant Church in France was not a monolithic entity despite the presence of formal structures and a well-defined doctrine. Most of the work of Huguenot institutional structures dealt with local needs and concerns, and not issues of the national Church as a whole. Yet the shared experience of living in an increasingly hostile state also fostered a sense of unity among its members. Thus being Protestant in France was defined as much by the circumstances of living in a Catholic society as it was by adherence to a specific body of religious doctrine. Current events have given a renewed importance to the subtleties of how religion fits into individual and group identity. In a contemporary American society that is generally heterogeneous and secular, it is not always easy to understand the role of religion in how individuals sympathize with certain groups or nations. This gives works such as these a relevance that goes beyond the historical topics they describe. ERIC JOHNSON, History, UCLA Joseph Biancalana, The Fee Tail and the Common Recovery in Medieval England 1176–1502, Cambridge Studies in English Legal History, ed. J. H. Baker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 2001) 498 pp. Joseph Biancalana’s long needed work on The Fee Tail and the Common Re- REVIEWS 207 covery expertly summarizes and explains the origins of fee tails, how they work, and why they continued to be used. He has fit his work nicely into the historiography of law, including both old and new historians of English law from Pollock , Plucknett, Milsom, and Maitland to Baker, Brand, Hudson, Holt, and Waugh among many other recognizable names. Biancalana takes a close look at laws and statues concerning fee tails and common recoveries and how they are actually put into practice. Each chapter of Biancalana’s integrated work could read as a separate essay, examining in depth chronological aspects or developments in the history of fee tails and the statutes, laws, and legal actions that spun off from the original intent such as: maritagium, De Donis, jointure, Quia Emptores, and most importantly , common recoveries. What little he could glean about popular opinion of these laws and changes is also included with the appropriate warnings about how far such findings should be trusted. Nearly every point and definitely all difficult issues, are illustrated in brief by an...