Welsh Journals

of appropriate medieval sites throughout Britain. At the end of each chapter is a series of questions, mostly designed to test understanding of the text, but, wherever appropriate, suggesting possible follow-up projects in the locality. The text is generously full of quotations from a wide range of sources and many local examples are given in the descriptive chapters. In addition, there is plenty of visual material. This consists of maps and diagrams, which are on the whole helpful, although the map of medieval trade routes is most inadequate; unnecessary and rather poor line drawings in the text (for example, a full page purporting to illustrate royal heads); and photographs of buildings and contemporary illustrations. Here there is one major lapse: a photograph of the interior of the Blue Mosque at Istanbul. The author is at his best when describing medieval life and encouraging his readers to explore the countryside for themselves. The narrative chapters are written in a highly coloured (and at times ungrammatical) style, concentrating on kings, battles and tales of brutality. Towards the end, he is highly selective, devoting more to the Peasants' Revolt than to the whole of the fifteenth century in England. In particular, the epithets begin to pall. The French are always 'proud', English kings seem 'brave', 'generous', 'cruel', 'weak', and 'unscrupulous' by turn, and the barons seem perpetually 'restless'. It all ends predictably, with the murder of the Princes antagonising the barons, 'who were themselves as unprincipled as Richard and backed whichever party served their own selfish ends'. While it is perhaps arguable whether medieval history still needs to be served up like this to sixteen-year-olds, errors of fact are inexcusable. Some of these may be attributable to scribal mistakes; but Bohemond appears seven times as 'Bohemod', and statements to the effect that the Crusaders occupied 'large parts of Asia Minor' or that Frederick II was alive in 1254 are simply wrong. And what are we to make of the 'brilliant 13th century Franciscan', Francis Bacon? In all there are at least twenty separate errors. This is not a book to be used in the classroom, then, without considerable care. J. HARDING The Leys School, Cambridge THE ENGLISH PEASANTRY IN THE LATER MIDDLE AGES. By R. H. Hilton. Oxford University Press, 1975. Pp. 256. £ 6.50. The first six chapters of this work consist of the Ford Lectures delivered at Oxford in 1973 and their theme provides the title of the book. The remaining five chapters are reprints of earlier studies by Professor Hilton. Although a few of the latter lie slightly outside the general theme, their inclusion is nonetheless welcome, since for most readers they will be far more accessible here than in the form of their original publication. In his first lecture Professor Hilton discusses various theories about the place of the peasantry in society. His own conclusion is that the peasantry was a distinct economic class and not merely a status group in a one-class