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the broader problems with which a fifteenth-century administration had to deal. In particular, Dr. Griffiths's contribution on Wales and the marches, raises, in their infinite variety, the permanent difficulties with which each ruler had to contend and their small successes and larger failures in doing so. This essay perhaps comes closest of all to dealing with the grass-root problems of the century. The essence of the fifteenth century after all lies not so much in the achievements or failures of England's kings nor in the intrigues and machinations of her great subjects, but in those social changes which penetrated deep into the layers of society, and in those under-publicized developments in the gentler arts. It is hoped that this volume will prove to have been a splendid beginning of a series of similar studies by which the real character of the fifteenth century will be revealed. LLINOS SMITH Aberystwyth. THE REIGN OF RICHARD II: ESSAYS IN HONOUR OF MAY McKisack. Edited by F. R. H. Du Boulay and Caroline M. Barron. Athlone Press, London, 1971, Pp. 335. £ 5.00. A festschrift for May McKisack is a happy occasion and the fourteen essays in this volume (together with an introduction by J. N. L. Myres, which those who have been taught by Miss McKisack will appreciate) appropriately honour one who has edited Thomas Favent and who has written in The Fourteenth Century the best introduction to Richard IPs reign. Each contribution adds usefully in some way to our knowledge of late fourteenth-century England. One may, for example, make passing mention of the valuable piece by Dr. Chaplais on the diplomatic docu- ments of the reign and Dr. Storey's essay on 'Liveries and Commissions of the Peace, 1388-90'. Indeed all pieces deserve mention, but in a short notice a reviewer may be pardoned for selective comment. In 'Richard II's System of Patronage', Dr. Tuck adds a good chapter to what has become an essential theme of many reigns. The 'system' was in fact less personal than the title suggests; often the carefully documented petitions which began the quest for reward never reached the king, but those from men whom he favoured regularly engaged his attention. Several essays, how- ever, have little or no bearing on the king himself. This is true of Barbara Harvey's skilful 'The Monks of Westminster Abbey and the University of Oxford'. Here evidence is drawn from a broad period; most con- tributors confine their attention to 1377-99. In "Thoughts about the Peasants' Revolt', V. H. Galbraith returns spikily and with gusto to the Anonimalle Chronicle's account of 1381. There are second thoughts about its possible author (? William Pakington) and a contrast is made between its value as a source and the 'wild gossip' of Walsingham and Knighton (both of whom, it is suggested, owed something to the Anonimalle author). Clerics were in fact notoriously hostile witnesses, as Beatrice White argues, to the hardships of the poor. Her 'Poet and Peasant' shows that of Chaucer, Gower and Langland, only the last wrote with