A work of medieval anthropological history in the same vein as Le Roy Ladurie's Montaillou, and written with style, Emmanuel Legeard's "Germigny-l'Exempt" shows how a French village evolved from a Gallo-Roman villa to one of the most powerful strongholds in Europe, became the cradle of the Bourbon's power and eventually received an extraordinary church, just to fall back into oblivion at the beginning of the Renaissance period. An amazing book, that deserves to be translated. ( )