Reviews

REVIEWS Lollardy and the Gentry in the Later Middle Ages. (Eds.) Margaret Aston and Colin Richmond. Pp, viii + 280, 6 illustrations, I O maps and tables. Sutton Publishing, Stroud, 1997 (Cased, £40). Over the last thirty years a number of themes in religious history have attracted considerable attention from scholars and built up closelyknit groups of researchers who exchange ideas and collaborate on specific projects. One such theme is that of LoIIardy. Many of the contributors to this volume of essays are already well-known for their previous writings on Lollardy: others are distinguished medieval historians whose main research has in the past been on nonecclesiastical topics and who therefore bring a fresh approach to the study of Lollardy; the final group of contributors comprises some younger scholars whose essays are related to their doctoral research. There are twelve essays altogether of which two, those by Rob Lutton and Norman Tanner, relate directly to Kent. The other essays, and the introduction by the co-editors, deal with more general issues or specifically non-Kentish topics, but help to set the wider scene into which the Kentish studies can be placed. The overall theme of the volume is the attempt to explore how far the Lollardy that survived initial persecution in the early fifteenth century could be attributed to the support of significant landed families, and whether parallels can be drawn between the survival ofLollardy in England and aristocratic support for Hussites in eastern Europe. Pawel Dras' essay on 'Hussitism and the Polish Nobility' is, in that context, a particularly valuable contribution to the volume. Rob Lutton 's essay explores the role ofLollardy in Tenterden in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth cenuries. He uses the familiar evidence of testamentary bequests to trace suspected Lollardy in Tenterden families in much the same way that Michael Zell has used equivalent evidence from the mid-sixteenth century to test the relative strength of Catholic and Protestant opinion among the Kentish laity. Lutton also argues that it was the widespread nature of Lollard/ Protestant attitudes that resulted in the growth in popularity of the endowment of masses in honour of the Name of Jesus as opposed to 265 REVIEWS other pious bequests, such as candles to burn before particular statues or shrines, in the late fifteenth century. 'Jesus masses' were established at Sandwich and Lydd in the 1460s, at Canterbury by the 1470s and at Tenterden by the early siteenth century. No fewer than 36 per cent of a sample of Tenterden wills proved between 1513 and 1535 include bequests for a 'Jesus mass'. Norman Tanner examines the treatment of Lollards by Archbishop Warham of Canterbury. This essay was a precursor to an edition of the archbishop's formal proceedings against suspected Lollards in 1511-12, as recorded in folios 159-75 of his surviving register, which Tanner has edited for the Kent Records Series. A high proportion of suspected Lollards came from Tenterden and the neighbouring W ealden villages and the others from Ashford, Canterbury, Maidstone and Staplehurst, all areas that were to show profound Puritan sympathies in the mid-seventeenth century and later had early nonconformist meeting houses. Tanner shows that, though Warham was exceptionally thorough in rooting out those syspected of heresy, he was, by the standards of the time, fairly merciful in the punishments meted out. Only five of the fifty-three people charged were handed over to the secular authorities for execution by burning. A further seven were sentenced to witness these executions and a majority had to perform public penance, but none were sentenced to be flogged, a common punishment for heretics in other parts of the country. This volume is a welcome addition to the ecclesiastical historiography of late medieval England and the essays by Lutton and Tanner are important contributions to the religious history of Kent in the years immedietely preceding the Reformation. NIGEL YATES Handbook of Mediterranean Roman Pottery. By John W. Hayes. 22 x 14 cm. Pp. 108, with numerous plates (8 in colour) and 80 line drawings. British Museum Press, London, 1997 (Cased, £14.99). A Corpus of Relief-patterned Tiles in Roman Britain. By Ian Betts, Ernest W. Black and John Gower. 29.5 x 21 cm. Journal of Roman Pottery Studies, 1 ( 1994/7), Oxbow Books, Oxford, 1997 (Paperback, n.p.) The handbook of Mediterranean Roman pottery is a very useful addition to the ever-growing number of studies devoted to Roman pottery. It is of interest to the general reader but, more especially, to the pottery specialist as a handy reference book to pottery which, made in the Mediterranean area, often finds by way of trade its way into Roman Britain. 266 REVIEWS This slim volume covers such diverse topics as the distribution of the pottery, its sources, functions and shapes, production, sizes and quantities, with separate sections on amphorae, fine and coarse wares and vessels with special functions. It is very well illustrated by colour and monochrome plates, of varying quality, and many line drawings; also, the printing of the figures varies, with fine lines often merging. However, the author ought to be thanked and congratulated for the amount of work involved in the compilation of this work, which will afford many short cuts and starting points in the study of Roman pottery. Fragments of brick and tile excavated on Romano-British sites are an embarrassment by their sheer volume and the proportionately little information they yield. For, apart from type, size and, more recently the identification of centres of production through the petrological analysis of clays, little can be said other than questions of detail, the occasional animal foot-prints, batch numbers and graffiti found on tiles. A study of the huge weight of a roof tiled with tegulae and imbrices is surely a fruitful research field for a quantity surveyor. The corpus follows mainly on the pioneering work of A.W.G. Lowther, A Study of the Patterns on Roman Flue-Tiles and their Distribution (Research Papers of the Surrey Archaeological Society, i ( 1948), by the compilation and study of a very useful and extensive body of material, to which our Society has contributed a grant. An enormous amount of work must have occupied the three authors in visiting museum collections and consulting published works; they are to be warmly congratulated for this invaluable work of reference and the Roman Pottery Study Group for its publication. As the list of contents shows this is a very thorough-going study of flue-tiles and their relief patterns, which aid mortar adhesion, and the classification of well over I 00 different roller stamps, the sites where they were found and the collections where they are kept. The corpus is amply illustrated by plates and line drawings. Unfortunately, the printer has not been kind to the authors for the reproduction of the plates varies from the abysmal (Plate I is hopeless) to the uninformative; so much so that figures 21 a and 21 b required the production of separate overlays to make them at all intelligible. There is also some confusion as to whether this is Volume 7 (1994) as on the cover of the volume, or Volume 7 ( 1997) as on its front page. All in all, I thoroughly recommend this corpus which will prove indispensable both in the field and in the library and, in many ways, will stand alongside Oswald's and Gillam's pioneering studies in the study of samian and coarse wares, respectively. A.P. DETSICAS 267 REVIEWS Also received and deposited in the Society's Library: An 18th Century Mad-Doctor: William Perfect of West Malling. By Shirley Burgoyne Black. 10.5 x 14 cm. Pp. 85. Darenth Valley Publications, 1995 (Paperback, n.p.) Wye: 10,000 Years of a Kentish Community and its Landscape. By Nicola R. Bannister and Trudy A. Watt. 21 x 20.5 cm. Pp. 48, with many illustrations. Wye College Press, 1997 (Paperback, n.p.} Bredgar: The History of a Kentish Parish Church. By Helen Allinson. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. 180, 15 pls., 11 figs. Synjon Books, Petts Wood, 1997 (Paperback, £12.50). The Maison Dieu and Medieval Faversham. By Mike Frohnsdorff. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. 39, 2 figs. The Faversham Society, 1997 (Paperback, £4.95). Faversham Ships and Seamen in the sixteenth Century. By Patricia Hyde. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. xiv + 133, with 12 illustrations and tables. About Faversham no. 45, The Faversham Society, 1997 (Paperback, £4.45). Davington Parish and People. By Kenneth Melrose. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. x + 207 + xiv, 6 plans. About Faversham no. 52. The Faversham Society, I 996 (Paperback, £4.95). Chronicles of the Maison Dieu, Ospringe. By H.A. James. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. viii + 90. About Faversham no. 54. The Faversham Society, 1997 (Paperback, £2.45). The Nash Families in Goodnestone-next-Wingham. By David Nash Mills. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. viii= 90. 32 illustrations. About Faversham no. 55. The Faversham Society, 1997 (Paperback, £2.95). Lees Court: An Investigation into its History and Architecture. By Tempest Hay. 29.5 x 21 cm. Pp. xiv = 40, 14 illustrations. About Faversham no. 57. The Faversham Society, 1997 (Paperback, £1.95). 20th Century Defences in Britain: Kent. By David Burridge. 21 x 15 cm. Pp. x + 85, with many illustrations. Brassey's, London, 1997 (Paperback, n.p.) Contemplation and Action: The Other Monasticism. By Roberta Gilchrist. 25 x 17 cm. Pp. xiv + 250, 121 figs. Leicester U.P., Leicester, 1995 (Cased, n.p.) 268