This collection of ten essays, edited by University of the Basque Country medievalist Fabrizio Titone, contains a variety of scholarly studies on the nature of “disciplined dissent.” Titone defines the concept in his introduction as “the conservative process involved in mounting a critique, a protest, in which those who dissented might intercept and utilize the cultural repertoire of those in authority” (7). The authors of these essays examine a variety of case studies from the medieval and early modern periods in which individuals and groups with less power or agency co-opted the tools of the elites to achieve positive gains for themselves. The subjects of these studies utilized disciplined dissent in different ways to achieve a diversity of goals. Barbara H. Rosenwien’s “Poetic Dissent: The Troubadours at Toulouse” provides a strong beginning for the series by examining similarities in the language used by scribes for official noble edicts and that of troubadours who transferred the emotive language often used in the edicts from the context of diplomatic relationships to romantic themes. By using the language of love and betrayal in a courtly romantic context, troubadours sometimes made controversial statements about political and social issues.

Christina Lutter identifies a different sort of disciplined dissent in the way two different monastic chroniclers documented the rise of Rudolph I in late thirteenth-century Austria. The chroniclers display disciplined dissent by carefully negotiating cautious praise for the ruler while also affirming that their real benefactors were the local nobles who provided protection for the monastery. Peter Coss unveils a number of examples of disciplined dissent in the English context in his “Disciplined Dissent in Fourteenth-Century England.” Coss highlights how flexible forms of disciplined dissent could be by giving examples. These examples range from ploys utilized by the rising professional classes to penetrate the ranks of the gentry to church service undertaken by women who opened doors to great autonomy within that approved context. Coss goes so far as to write of disciplined dissent that “its strength lies in its elasticity and malleability” (110). Titone contributes a fascinating look at how brides and their families negotiated for more agency in engineering marriages in the diocese of Catania during the late medieval period. These essays are the strongest of a generally helpful series of historical vignettes.

This collection as a whole provides an interesting introduction to the concept of disciplined dissent as well as some compelling case studies of what disciplined dissent looked like in concrete historical contexts. Titone’s concept liberates students of the late medieval and early modern periods from the dichotomy of passive acceptance versus violent resistance. The people profiled in these historical studies assert their agency through a complex process of negotiation and adaptation in which they achieve change or some measure of liberation without overturning the social order. The strongest arguments for the effectiveness of this kind of agency appear in the essays that deal with negotiation at the microcosmic or individual levels of society. Titone’s own essay on the marriages in Catania and some of the examples of Coss offer the most compelling examples of this sort of individual agency. The notion of disciplined dissent as a cultural or literary force calls for further studies and is well represented in this collection by Rosenwein’s troubadours as well as Angela Fernandez’s essay on the literary contributions of Juana de la Cruz. The most difficult cases to make are those set forth in essays like Alma Polomi’s “The Political Machinations of Wage Laborers in Siena, Florence, Lucca, and Perugia,” which involve larger groups spread over wider geographic regions and in which the lines between disciplined dissent and more aggressive forms of protest were blurred. While disciplined dissent may well have been a prominent factor in these cases, these examples are so enmeshed with insurgencies and other active forms of resistance that they stretch the definition of disciplined dissent. Disciplined Dissent serves well as a resource for scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduate students. It is a recommended guide to exploring alternative methods of peaceful protest and social negotiation in the medieval and early modern periods.