OK: much coffee later, and I still can't remember what it was that irritated people about Jesse Byock, and why it was that I should take care when reading his work. It's been ten years since the comments were first made, I admit to my deep dismay. I'm not dodging disagreement or trying to avoid an argument: I honestly can't remember, and I would be a happier person if I could.

Obviously there is some controversy around him: it's to do with his interpretations rather than about him personally, I am sure (I haven't heard anything nasty about him, and there have been enough drunk medievalists in my presence that I'd have heard Something if there was), but I'm lost beyond that. What is it (she asked, pathetically)?

Not that I'm adverse to holding to scholars who are courting controversy, themselves. Carol Clover's article about infanticide in medieval Iceland ("The Politics of Scarcity") rocks my world.