This sturdily produced monograph from Liverpool University Press represents half of the major publication output from the Leverhulme Trust-funded research project Anarchy? War and Status in 12th Century Landscapes of Conflict (a companion volume, Castles, Siegeworks and Settlements: Surveying the archaeology of the twelfth century, is forthcoming from Archaeopress and will present the desk and field research generated). The question mark—missing from the title of this book—is significant, as the authors make explicit their intention of using archaeological approaches to the conflicts of the 1100s to challenge traditional characterizations of (in particular) the civil war of 1135–54. As the Introduction to this book makes clear, ‘Anarchy’ remains a contentious term. Although semantic hand-wringing is often (at best) a distraction, the question of whether the civil war period was truly marked by endemic unpleasantness and accelerated administrative entropy (and what the broader social and cultural impacts of that might have been) remains an important question. This book brings a new perspective to that question and, in doing so, takes some decisive steps forward.

Chapter 2 covers the essential outlines of the civil war and does so adequately. It is—of necessity—a thumbnail sketch of the narrative history, as derived from the surviving historical record. As presented here there is little to argue with, although certain points of debate are passed over rapidly—issues of social mobility and the relationship of baronial power to the crown could perhaps have been developed a little more. The focus here is very firmly on the years between 1135 and 1154. The rebellion of 1173–4, mentioned in the Introduction, is given no further attention (which is slightly regrettable, given the vagaries of the archaeological dating admitted to in later chapters). This is followed by seven thematic chapters that deal with (in order): (3) the landscape of conflict (battlefields and siege works); (4) castles; (5) material culture (including a very useful and up-to-date overview of the fascinatingly diverse and decentralized—by medieval English standards—coinage of King Stephen's reign); (6) the material paraphernalia of twelfth-century violence (i.e., arms and armour); (7) the role of church architecture in militarized contexts; (8) the effect of warfare on town, village and countryside; (9) a case study of the impact of conflict in the Ely area; (10) a conclusion and (re)assessment of the civil war in its twelfth-century context.

Every chapter provokes thought and provides insight in equal measure. For example, the useful summary of the coinage is treated here with sensitivity and although its potential for exploring both the nature and the exercise of royal power remains perhaps under-exploited, the authors highlight the crucial issue of the extent to which hoard deposition is ‘a reflection of fear and violence’ (p. 149). The geographical context of hoarded wealth in times of conflict offers a potentially powerful means of mapping archaeological signatures for conflict against other indicators. The fact that this remains one of many avenues that the authors introduce, but choose not to explore, is an indicator of the extent to which medieval warfare—from an archaeological perspective—remains a largely undiscovered country. Importantly, the approaches taken here reflect and enlarge on Creighton's positioning of militarized architecture within wider expressions of ideology and mentalité (rather than simply as reflexes of an ahistorical military rationalism). In doing so, the volume develops and complements other recent work on the symbolic undertow of military landscapes (by the reviewer amongst others) and is hopefully part of a broader shift in archaeo-historical approaches to conflict landscapes.

A key theme that emerges is the importance of competitive display during the civil war, with conflict seen as propellant to the rise in chivalric ideology and iconography amongst the knightly class (explored further in chapters 4, 5, 6 and 10 in particular), driving—amongst other things—a spike in religious investment during the civil war period, as well as the well-attested surge in private fortification. One might well ask whether increases in religious patronage were a manifestation of fear and instability as well as concern for lordly competition: few circumstances can have prompted a greater supernatural protection, intervention and the state of one's immortal soul than protracted civil war. But it is to the author's credit that the book raises more questions than it answers. In a field so under-studied from an archaeological perspective as this one, one of the principal purposes of a project such as this is surely to open up the field of research and inspire others to follow up on the avenues that have been signposted: further work on the landscape context of battles and skirmishes, the relationship of twelfth-century hoards to conflict landscapes, the landscape dynamics of communication and mobilization and comparison with the archaeological traces of conflict in earlier and later centuries might all be profitably pursued.

This book is also, however—with apologies for the cliché—much more than the sum of its parts. Whilst, with the exception of the Wallingford and Ely case studies, the bulk of the volume is synthetic (and, as such, very useful), it is the overall approach that sets it apart. It is an agenda-setting work, positioning archaeology as neither a subservient adjunct to history nor its wilfully ignorant antagonist. Instead, it sensitively positions conflict archaeology (generously defined) as a complementary and powerful array of approaches and sets of evidence with the potential to unlock regions of historical enquiry that other disciplines cannot reach. Overall, this a very useful introduction to the issues surrounding twelfth-century warfare in Britain and in many ways a pioneering work. It is to be hoped that it will stimulate even greater interest in what has, hitherto, been a neglected area of research for interdisciplinarians.