Agricultural History Review, Volume 70 Part 1 (2022), p. 132

This major tome represents a huge body of synthesis and research, expertly crafted by the editors and contributors to bring together holistically key themes and topics in later medieval British archaeology. As is the case with most books in the Oxford Handbook series, this is a large volume, at 1058 pages and 60 chapter contributions. The subject matter of later medieval archaeology is multi-faceted, complex and describes an already fairly disparate array of research foci. Nevertheless, the volume does an excellent job of achieving balance in a cohesive and comprehensive overview.

The 60 contributions are split between ten sections in the book, which demonstrates an attempt to arrange the analysis thematically, covering everything from the fundamental and usual suspects, namely the historiography of later medieval archaeology, towns, power, craft, and rural settlement, to religion and belief. The volume does, however, attempt to account for more recent, novel and emerging trends in the field too, with slightly less common thematic sections, analysing the senses, or growing up and growing old, while the final section of the volume also attempts to contextualize British research trends, within wider European analyses. Though there are few major quibbles that one may have with such an ambitious and accomplished shopping list of research themes, how effective this latter international section is at summarizing effectively the key trends in neighbouring regions is perhaps moot.

In terms of the pitch of contributions, there is a decent blend of analyses that fall into the category of critical literature reviews assessing research trends on the one hand, and those that summarize and assess key forms of evidence (old and new) on the other. Added to this, however, are a number of contributions that hone possibilities in relatively novel areas of research, including the analysis of sound and landscape by S. Mileson, or the analysis of play by M. Hall. These contributions give a hint at the more theoretically engaged and pioneering forms of analysis that are slowly coming to characterize later medieval archaeology, and which are expertly foregrounded by Graves and Gerrard in the introductory section. There are few major gaps in the volume, although some readers might have preferred to see more coverage of other traditional stalwarts of medieval analyses, including the burgeoning and rich field of cemetery archaeology, or castle studies, more overtly. There are of course some excellent contributions covering these fields, including one of the standouts for this reviewer, by O. Creighton, summarizing the major issues and trends facing analysis of elite space and castle landscapes. While contributions are drawn from across a range of sectors, the volume as a whole is weighted towards academic contributions. Given the boom in information produced through developer-led contexts in recent years, one may have liked to see slightly more coverage and input from the commercial sector. Notwithstanding such quibbles, there is a remarkable balance overall, with most sections of the book characterized by both breadth and depth.

In terms of pitch, contributors seem to have received a steer towards a wider British focus, with overt efforts in a range of contributions to avoid too regional a focus. This means that inevitably disparities in regional research trajectories often necessitate a gap in coverage, data being acknowledged as unavailable in some regions for overview, or an inevitable bias towards data and debates that really only characterize scholarship in and concerning particular regions. Hence, Scotland, Wales or the south west, emerge in many respects as poor cousin to the midlands, central and eastern England. While this is as much the result of regionality in academic interest, the absence of similar scales of infrastructure and development projects in recent decades, has simply not engendered the same trajectories of discovery across Britain. It also remains true that different research histories necessitate that some debates have simply not featured as priorities, or been sufficiently prominent in certain regions to attract field analysis or focused research. For example, assembly culture in Gaelic areas, a topic of considerable significance for medieval Scotland, is absent.

Thus, there is something of a tension throughout the volume between the regional nature of many of the principal debates and themes, and the attempt at national coverage that characterizes most of the analyses presented in the volume. While this may be somewhat exacerbated by the selection of contributors and their topics of focus, this is not a failing. Instead, one may read this as a valuable contribution to comparison and contrast, which ensures that the volume as a whole focuses on national trajectories, and truly does attempt to capture as holistically as practicable the state of the art.

To this latter aim, this volume may be said to have been spectacularly successful, and it will constitute a major landmark for the field for some time to come. As a whole it represents an indispensable reference for the widest array of themes and debates in medieval archaeology yet assembled. Sections like Part IV, examining life within towns and ports, includes analysis of urban housing, the relationship with hinterlands, shops, and infrastructure, to paint an extraordinarily holistic assessment of the whole. These themes and associated debates, moreover, characterize scholarship in Britain and elsewhere in Europe, making the volume appropriate to the interested reader, student and specialist working within Britain and without. Alongside these many achievements of synthesis may be placed a considerable number of contributions that problematize the current state of the art, and indeed, pioneer new directions within the historiography of later medieval archaeology. Ronan O’Donnell’s overview of field systems and arable agricultural practices, teases apart temporal change in an accessible and important overview for much wider debates. Amanda Richardson contributes an important discursive analysis of gender and space, while Aleks Pluskowski presents an important overview of the fluid relationship between wild animals, humans and landscape, as well as the impacts of changes that characterize the post-medieval period, and practice of things like hunting culture thereafter.

There is therefore much to recommend this volume, with the paperback edition in particular being remarkable value for such a comprehensive piece of synthesis. The editors have done an exemplary job of knitting this volume together into a cohesive, readable and fluent landmark of scholarship for this field.