John R. Kenyon, Castles, Town Defences and Artillery Fortifications in the United Kingdom and Ireland: A Bibliography 1945-2006  (Donington. Shaun Tyas. 2008). pp. xii + 740. Price: £35.

It is impossible to “review” a Bibliography in exactly the same way that one reviews a book or an article: one cannot compliment or take to task its author's attitudes, research or interpretations in the same way. Nevertheless, full attention must be drawn to a Bibliography such as this (and other types of “compilation scholarship”) not only because it will be so useful to so many but because it will still be so useful long after many of the more ephemeral published products of “research” have been superseded. In a field of study devoted to monuments, it is no exaggeration to say that this volume is a monument in its own right – both to its subject and to its author's industry. That it may have overlooked a few minor published notes (as the author anticipates, though I have no evidence that it has done so significantly) is neither here nor there – one definition of a list is something which hasn't got something on it – for its strength rests in its 700-plus page documentation of sixty years in a flourishing field of medieval studies to which hundreds of scholars have contributed. It includes the material earlier published for the author by the Council for British Archaeology  (in three instalments, up to 1990) together with a great deal else mainly published after 1990. As well as a research-tool the book gives us the data for (one day) an analytical history of castle studies in the second half of the twentieth century. It is, very appropriately, dedicated to the memory of an outstanding scholar of medieval castles and CSG founder-member, the late Richard Avent.

Here is a publication which will be of enormous to help to many people: professional and amateur, students of all types and at all levels, practitioners of all sorts. For its bulk, the price represents very good value. We are first given groups of books and articles with general coverage, occupying almost a hundred pages. The bulk of the volume is then devoted to individual sites, arranged alphabetically within the (historic) shires - also listed alphabetically - of England, Wales, Scotland, the Islands and Ireland (Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland in one county sequence). An Appendix deals with material published largely in 2007. Two indices – one to authors and the other to places – help the reader around the contents.  These can be used in varied ways to find what has been written: in a heirarchy from an individual rural or urban place, to a shire, to a region of shires and thence to a whole country. The critiques of literature, published in the CBA Bibliographies and more recently in the CSG Bibliographies, can be used to compliment the reader's searchings. It is the author's intention to publish addenda to the present volume in the on-going annual CSG Bibliographies. To John (and to your publisher) – from all devotees of castle studies – many congratulations and many thanks.                                                                                                                               Bob Higham, Exeter, June 2008

Castles of the Morea. Kevin Andrews. 23 x 31 cms. xxxii + 274 pp. 232 illus. 40 colour plates, 1 map. Gennadeion Monographs IV. Princeton, New Jersey: The American School of Classical Studies at Athens, 2006. ISBN-13: 978-0-87661-406-8; ISBN-10: 0-87661-406-3. Price: £27 (hb) [available through Oxbow Books].

This sumptuous book is a revised edition of a pioneering volume which first appeared in 1953.  When a young research scholar chose to write his dissertation on the 41 plans in the Grimani Codex housed in the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, he embarked on a detailed study of Venetian, Ottoman and earlier fortifications in the Peloponnese.  The collection of plans was prepared for Francesco Grimani, successively military commander and then governor of Morea during the Venetian recapture of its former possessions (1685-1715). All but four of the plans, elevations, maps and coastal charts are of fortresses and harbours in southern Greece. The others are in Euboea, Crete, Albania and Montenegro.  Many of the castle plans were drawn at the time of their capture (1685-92); others show the defences that Grimani recommended to be built (1701-6).  However Venetian ambitions far exceeded their capacity to construct new work, apart from the additional defences at Acrocorinth, the bastions at Methone and Nauplia, and Sagredo’s great Palamidi fortress (1711-14) on the cliff above the latter town.

The dissertation might have been limited to the immediate campaign of reconquest and of Turkish response, as a literal commentary on the plans, 6 of which show sieges in progress.  Instead Andrews set out on a four-year trail of discovery, examining all 17 fortresses, recording their entire history and disentangling their building sequences, often for the first time.  The Grimani plans are supplemented by photographs, sketch plans and air views.  Venetian inscriptions are accurately recorded and building materials noted.  Apart from inland Mistra, all the fortresses were coastal and accessible to the Venetian fleet.  The 18 page concluding chapter sums up the characteristics of six separate periods of fortification from early Byzantine to Ottoman, identifying their distinctive plan elements and architectural details, using Acrocorinth as the key to his chronology.  This was a pioneer study carried out amid the upheavals of the Greek civil war (1943-9), but only one fortress proved to be off limits.  

Andrews’s original text is unchanged, but the crucial Grimani illustrations are now in colour.  Paradoxically the illustrations on the front dust-cover are of two forts outside the Morea, built in Montenegro and Crete. There is a helpful introduction by Glenn R. Bugh, who places this volume in its context, explains the decision to reprint the original and guides the reader to what further work has been undertaken or published on castles of the Peloponnese in the last 50 years. In particular the concluding chapter now needs to be modified. He also gives an engaging portrait of Kevin Andrews and of his love for the Greek people and their countryside and shows how this coloured his life and socialist political views.  That portrait is made more vivid by a photograph of Andrews posed before a castle with a shepherd’s cloak thrown over his shoulders and his legs protected against thorn bushes and snakes by knee-high leather boots - a figure in its setting as charismatic as T. E. Lawrence in full Arab dress.                                     Lawrence Butler

De Meulemeester, Johnny et Mignot Philippe, Castellologie belge. Un survol historiographique
Meyer Werner, Zimmer John, Boscardin Maria-Letizia, Le Krak des Chevaliers (République arabe syrienne). Rapport préliminaire sur les recherches 2005/2006

Beuchet Laurent, Archéologie préventive des châteaux de Bretagne ducale : résultats récents et perspectives de recherche
Flambard Héricher Anne-Marie et Lepeuple Bruno, Topographie et prospection. Une approche renouvelée de l’étude des châteaux 1980-2006
Herremans Davy, Antwerpen (Anvers, Belgique). Une nouvelle chronologie pour le site castral
Chantinne Frédéric, Le château de Chimay (Hainaut, Belgique).                Apport des récentes recherches archéologiques
Jeitler Markus, Zum Forschungsstand der Wiener Hofburg
Heine Hans Wilhelm, « Burgenlandschaft Aller-Leine-Tal » Bausteine zur Erfassung und Erschließung einer Kulturlandschaft
Zimmer John, La castellologie luxembourgeoise aujourd’hui et demain
Eiora Rodriguez JorgeA., Aperçu de la castellologie chrétienne de la fin du Moyen Âge en Espagne
Mesqui Jean, Renn Derek, Smals Laurens, The Portcullis in Medieval Great Towers. An Impression
Creighton Oliver,Castle Studies and Archaeology in England: Towards a Research Framework for the Future
Penelope Dransart, Prospect and Excavation of Moated Sites: Scottish Earthwork Castles andHouse Societies in the Late Twelfth to Fourteenth Centuries
Ekroll Øystein,  Petropigi: a Byzantine Statio on the Via Egnatia in East Macedonia
 Janssen Hans, Medieval Castle Research in the Netherlands
McNeill T. E., The Death of the Chronological Narrative
 Nielsen H. M. Møller, Krogen : The Medieval Predecessor of Kronborg
O’Conor Kieran, Castle Studies in Ireland – the Way Forward
 Liebgott Niels-Knud and Olsen Rikke Agnete, Castellology in Scandinavia at the Beginning of the 2nd Millennium
 Oram Richard, Castles, Concepts and Contexts: Castle Studies in Scotland in Retrospect and Prospect
 Pringle Denys, Castellology in the Latin East: An Overview

Speight Sarah, Castles as Past Culture: Living with Castles in the Post-Medieval World
Uotila Kari, Digital Archaeology and Medieval Castles - Moon-balls and 3D-Simulations
Berkers Maarten, Claes Britt, De Decker Sam and De Meulemeester Johnny, Châteaux à motte des anciens Pays-Bas méridionaux : un état de la question après quinze ans de silence

CHÂTEAU GAILLARD. ÉTUDES DE CASTELLOGIE MÉDIÉVALE
Château Gaillard XXIII  Actes du colloque international de Houffalize (Belgique). 2006.
Available from Oxbow Books, Oxford @ (£60).