WHEN GOSSIPS MEET: WOMEN, FAMILY AND NEIGHBOURHOOD IN EARLY MODERN ENGLANDby Bernard CappOxford Studies in Social History, 55 (hardback)Amber Melville-Brown

In today's modern society, with the press and the public equally hooked on the culture of celebrity and tabloid gossip, protecting one's reputation can be a full-time job; media managers, agents and lawyers - thank goodness - are called on to ensure that reputations worth keeping, are kept.

But this is not just a modern phenomenon.

In this book, Bernard Capp, Professor of history at the University of Warwick, takes a novel look at the protection of reputation through a fascinating insight into what it meant to the poor and 'middling sorts' in early modern England.

According to Prof Capp: 'Women generally identified primarily with their families and a small circle of close friends and neighbours, or gossips.

Every parish, neighbourhood, and street concealed a patchwork of such networks based on factors such as occupation, kinship, statutes, age, and values.' Unsurprisingly, quarrels between neighbours were frequent and these networks provided the support required.

More surprising, is the extent to which these quarrels found their way into the ecclesiastical courts.

Defamation cases abounded and given the likely significant costs, it is clear that defending one's reputation was an important business.

Being predominantly heard in the ecclesiastical courts, they dealt mostly with issues of morality and spirituality.

Of course, not all threats of litigation went all the way to court and similarities can be seen with tactics adopted by some modern claimants.

While some practitioners will only threaten litigation where they and their client will sue if their requirements are not met, it is not uncommon for lawyers today to threaten litigation at the drop of a hat in the hope of bullying their opponents into submission.

Squabbling women did the same in Elizabethan times, throwing down the challenge of litigation in the expectation that the gossip-monger would back down when faced with significant legal costs.

And there were other similarities.

Mediation was offered by one's friends and neighbours, local gentlemen or the parish clergyman.

And while litigation was often the hot-headed response to abuse, evidence shows that the oxygen of publicity could be as damaging then as it is now.

Prof Capp writes: 'One witness observed sourly that the publicity created by the suit had injured the plaintiff's name far more than the words over which she was suing.'

Given the close networks on which early modern women depended, a good reputation was seemingly vital for their survival and to establish and maintain their position in society.

While this book might not be the best place to learn litigation techniques, for a brave man this might be the perfect gift for the wife.

It certainly provides an enlightening glimpse of the life of women in a real 'man's world'.

Amber Melville-Brown is a consultant with London-based David Price Solicitors & Advocates and the Gazette's media correspondent