Honor, Vengeance, and Social Trouble: Pardon Letters in the Burgundian Low Countries. By Peter Arnade and Walter Prevenier (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2015) 244pp. $79.95 cloth $26.95 paper

It is difficult to put down this rich and insightful examination of pardon letters from the Burgundian Netherlands. Readers will learn of tavern brawls, of noble quarrels, and of domestic disputes. People young and old across the entire social spectrum are documented in these letters—men and women, individuals, and collectivities. The authors provide rich detail and gripping narration within a nuanced methodological framework, incluing translations of the main letters discussed at the end of each chapter. The introduction references, most notably, Davis’ Fiction in the Archives.¹ The authors are clear about how their work contributes to hers: Whereas Davis, with brilliant literary-inflected insight, uncovered the narrative and legally conditioned strategies that shaped the presentation of events in pardon letters, Arnade and Prevenier bring this same attentiveness to a broader tapestry of social life. The stories told by the supplicants in their book are influenced not only by the...