Constance Brittain Bouchard is Distinguished Professor of Medieval History and Chair of the History Department at the University of Akron. Among her many books are "Every Valley Shall Be Exalted": The Discourse of Opposites in Twelfth-Century Thought and "Strong of Body, Brave and Noble": Chivalry and Society in Medieval France, also from Cornell, and The Cartulary of Montier-en-Der, 666-1129.

A signal strength of this book is the author's care to show that contemporaries understood and expressed in the charters the different transactions in which a monastery might engage. There was no confusion among pawns, leases, purchases, and gifts. In addition to being an important revisionist study of Burgundian Cistercian economic practices, this clear book is an excellent brief introduction for anyone wishing to understand twelfth-century charters and cartularies.(American Historical Review)