This is an interesting and unusual book, concentrating as it does on an individual, the renowned Jocelin of Wells, bishop of Bath (1206–42), and on a building, the famous bishop's palace at Wells. Originating in the papers delivered at a celebratory conference held at Wells in 2006 to mark the octocentenary of Jocelin's consecration, with additional material on more recent archaeological work at the site, the book is divided neatly into three parts, dealing respectively with Jocelin as bishop (four chapters), with Jocelin as builder (two chapters) and with the bishop's palace itself (four chapters). In the first section Nicholas Vincent provides a comprehensive account of the circumstances of Jocelin's appointment as bishop, which, despite so much other published work in this field, manages to unearth new facts and is especially good on the role of King John. Jane Sayers gives a business-like assessment of Jocelin's achievements, based on the available factual information and a degree of legitimate inference from the general, bringing out effectively his significance in both national and diocesan affairs. Diana Greenway exploits her unrivalled knowledge of the cathedral chapter of Wells to produce an authoritative and admirably clear account of how Jocelin transformed the quasi-cathedral into a fully functioning cathedral. Finally in this section Sethina Watson discusses the complex and confusing situation obtaining in this diocese between the late twelfth century and the mid-thirteenth century, in which three great churches competed for cathedral status (one less willingly than the others), namely, Bath, Wells and Glastonbury. In the short central section Tim Tatton-Brown sets Jocelin's episcopal palace admirably into the context of English episcopal palace-building in this period, while Jerry Sampson provides a compelling analysis of the building phases of both cathedral and palace under Jocelin, including a particularly useful discussion of the cathedral's famous west front, ‘one of the most remarkable visionary buildings of the Middle Ages’, whose sculptural campaign, the author suggests, was essentially complete by the time of Jocelin's death in 1242. The third section, on the bishop's palace, contains important and in places innovative work for a site of this kind. Alex Turner, Christopher Gerrard and Keith Wilkinson present the results of geophysical and geoarchaeological surveys aimed inter alia at identifying the remains of lost parts of the palace; Mark Horton uses recent archaeological and other surveys to locate, if at times tentatively, lost elements of the palace; and, most remarkably, David Hill investigates in a ‘cursory’ study the potential help in the dating of stonework at the palace of an analysis of the richly varied lichen flora on its walls. The book ends, fittingly, with Matthew Reeve's very useful essay on the parts of the palace most familiar to visitors today, the chapel and the ruined great hall, built by Bishop Robert Burnell (1275–92). The book is handsomely produced and generously illustrated throughout, with twenty-two colour plates and twenty-seven black-and-white figures, all of them very informative and closely related to the text.