This book fills an important gap in the scholarship on the clash between the regular monastic chapter of Christ Church Canterbury and the archbishops of Canterbury in the late twelfth century. The latter is recorded in the well-known chronicle of Gervase of Canterbury as well as in the overlooked collection of letters, edited by William Stubbs in 1865 and preserved in London, Lambeth Palace Library, ms. 415, which Barnaby helpfully calendars in the Appendix of his book, further suggesting that it was modelled on and possibly influenced by the Becket letters - collection.

Barnaby convincingly argues that the letter collection and Gervase's chronicle ought to be read together. In his opinion these sources evidence not only the monastic fight for survival and financial sustainability, but also their attempts at preserving and shaping the memory of the monastic community in the dispute between the archbishops and the monastery in the aftermath of Becket's martyrdom and canonization throughout the late twelfth century. As Barnaby shows, this fight took place both in England and at the papal curia through several appeals which show how the monastery tried to exploit royal and papal jurisdictions to obtain favorable arbitrations, often building on the appropriation of the cult of Thomas Becket and the control of his shrine.

Barnaby's argument is based on an informative and precise reconstruction of the dispute between Christ Church Canterbury and the episcopate concerning the appropriation of some churches in the Isle of Thanet and the foundation of the collegiate church of Hackington, just outside Canterbury. The dispute began in 1184 during the tenure of Archbishop Baldwin and, as Barnaby notes, resulted in numerous appeals to the papal curia, which are documented in Gervase's chronicle and the Lambeth letter collection. In chapter 3 the investigation of these appeals sheds light on the attempts of the monastic community to network with the papal curia, exploiting Benedictine networks and securing the support of the cardinalate to gain access to the pope.

Barnaby produces an interesting section on communication between England and the papal curia, which maps travelling routes and the challenges in undertaking long - distance and time - consuming travels in the High Middle Ages.

In chapter 4 Barnaby investigates how the dispute developed between 1187 and 1189, when the construction of the church in Hackington not only escalated the conflict between the monastery and Archbishop Baldwin, but also provoked divisions inside the monastic community, where some monks supported the archbishop. Barnaby argues that these divisions in the monastic community prompted the manipulation of letters collected in the Lambeth manuscript to reconstruct the monastic memory and defense before the papal curia, where the dispute was once more arbitrated, and the royal court, where King Henry II and Richard I intervened as peacemakers in the dispute. Barnaby finds further evidence of manipulation in the Lambeth letter collection between 1189 and 1191, when the dispute between Christ Church and the archbishop was paused because of Richard I's crusade in which the archbishop took part. In this chapter Barnaby addresses very interesting and overlooked evidence found in the martyrology of the abbey of St Bénigne in Dijon, where Baldwin stopped on his way to the Holy Land, donating some relics of Thomas Becket on behalf of the monastic community - this is seen by Barnaby as evidence of reconciliation between Baldwin and Christ Church before the archbishop's departure.

The relative peace between the parties continued in the following few years due to Richard's captivity in Germany on his way back from the crusade and the long time that led up to the election of Archbishop Hubert in 1193. Indeed, in 1193 a new dispute broke out between Hubert Walter and the monastery concerning the foundation of a new collegiate church in Lambeth. In Barnaby's opinion this new dispute suffered from the negative legacy of the clash between the monastery and archbishop Baldwin in the previous decade, which had left a legacy of mistrust towards the archbishop in the monastic community. Hence, in 1193 the dispute between Hubert Walter and the monastery escalated with accusations of corruption and was brought to the papal curia, where Innocent III arbitrated it in 1199. As Barnaby argues, this dispute also became the object of a tailored construction of memory in the monastic community, as evidenced in Gervase's chronicle, which advocates for the monastery and only recounts the successful achievements of the monks, while omitting the final papal arbitration through the dispatch to England of three judges delegate that endorsed the monastery against the archbishop.

In the last chapter of his book, Barnaby gives an overview of how after Hubert Walter's death in 1205 clashes between Christ Church and the archbishops of Canterbury arose due to the financial needs of the monastic community. Barnaby maintains that in the first few decades of the thirteenth century the monastic community carried on shaping its memory through the creation of forged evidence supporting their cause and the appropriation of the cult of Thomas Becket, as evidenced in the forged Magna Carta Beati Thomae, which was probably written in about 1235 - 1236 and backdated to 1170 Becket's donation of rights and privileges to the monks.

Ultimately, focusing on the importance of record - keeping and the writing of institutional memory, which included the appropriation of the Becket's cult, Barnaby maintains that, thanks to both Gervase's chronicle and the Lambeth letter collection, the monastic claims achieved successful outcomes against the attempts of the archbishops of Canterbury to control the monastery's properties and their income.

Barbara Bombi