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Kimberly A. LoPrete, Adela of Blois: Countess and Lord (c.1067-1137) (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2007). xxv + 663 pp. ISBN 1-85182-563-0. £65.00.
This is a long and densely written book, with a text of 438 pages, appendices amounting to 136 pages, and closely printed footnotes sometimes covering most of the page. When the author refers to it as a 'dense and seemingly sprawling monograph' the adverb strikes an apologetic, but unconvincing note. The subject of this monograph is Adela of Blois, the daughter of William the Conqueror and wife of Stephen-Henry, Count of Blois, Chartres, and Meaux, a theme treated by the author in previous articles and in her two-volume Ph.D. dissertation (which may explain the length of this book). What we are given is narrative history, rather than analytic, so detailed that the danger of losing sight of the wood for the trees is tacitly admitted, but only in part avoided by including a summary at the close of each chapter.
The author starts by observing that the...