Dorothy Jamieson's Willington and the Mowbrays is a very useful, detailed examination of a manor in the post Peasants’ Revolt era, firmly based in the county record office material, with a number of interesting points to make and full of color to help bring the study alive. Spanning a 140-year period between 1382 and 1522, the book is organized into chapters focusing on the nature of the evidence; the Peasants’ Revolt and the issue of the decline of serfdom; a comparison with two other Bedfordshire manors of Blunham Greys and Eggington; life on the manor; the role of the noble family (the Mowbray Dukes of Norfolk) who controlled the manor and those connected with them; finance and assets; the priory of Newnham (which held a number of lands in the manor); and a more synoptic discussion, “After the Peasants’ Revolt.” Its central theme, according to Jamieson, is “the story of the co-operation of the bailiff, manor elite and other tenants to regulate and control their own affairs within the context of the management of the Mowbray lords’ and ladies’ councils and their officials” (1). One indeed gets a real sense of manorial life in depth, right down to the ale tasters and haywards, controls on dogs (58–59), the playing of games such as tennis, quoits, and “dice and chequers” (57). The physical world also comes out quite clearly, to piles of dung and timber—and even the building of walls—being used to obstruct the king's highway (60). More generally, one gets the sense of how Willington had its own identity as a manor in terms of its administration. If compared with a similar manor in the area, for example, Blunham Greys, where we find a fairly strict organization yet one also struggling in terms of finance and order, Willington tended to be more well organized and cohesive.

That said, while the discussion of the Mowbray family is handled quite well, it could have been put more firmly in the wider context of nobles-oriented works, starting with McFarlane, Lander, and later Given-Wilson, and going on to Carpenter and Hicks, as well as more within the ever-developing discipline of landscape history. More about how the Mowbray family fit within the English nobility in the late medieval period would have also given further nuance to the placing of the manor within this massive estate. Moreover, one did feel that for chapter 2's (“The Decline of Serfdom and the Peasants’ Revolt”) context to the manor's history, while good, as such an important part of the book, Jamieson could have again engaged a bit more thoroughly with the historiography. She evinces, as elsewhere in the volume, considerable and sustained engagement with the county archive and associated materials, but I did feel this was, at times done at the expense of giving a more general idea of where Willington's experience sat within the post-plague manorial and wider social and economic experience.

This lack of sustained engagement with aspects of the modern historiography comes out elsewhere in the book, as when Jamieson asserts “up to one third of the population of England may have died of the Black Death, 1348–69, and this may also be true of Bedfordshire” (62) but cites only a rather old county history to back the point up. Of course, for a long time now, estimates have been pushing toward 50 percent of the population for the plague's impact. Bennett's study of alewives, as Razi's of Halesowen, would be similarly useful for developing a more sustained look at gender and, where possible age, or at least generational, issues. When it comes to estate management, Jamieson might have given Walter of Henley and Seneschaucy through to the Boke of Husbandry of Anthony Fitzherbert more of a look to see how Willington/Norfolk estate practice fit within both the traditions of and changes in manorial practice at the time, especially during a period of such varied experience as the fifteenth century. More about wider agrarian practice in the southeast would have also been quite useful.

There are also a few more specific issues in the book that could be addressed. For instance, the reference to “Acts of Parliament” in the early thirteenth century is problematic (69), and, more significantly, more use could perhaps have been made of the legal records (especially King's Bench, Common Pleas, and Assize). Such records would have given more of a sense of the wider harmony, or lack thereof, in the area as a whole. In general, greater use of central government records could have helped fill out the picture in a number of places.

However, while the wider context for this volume is somewhat disappointing, as emphasized by the relatively brief bibliography, on the whole, the mixture of monograph and record society volume works well and helps to bring together life on the manor of Willington. There is a useful map of the manor, a glossary for the uninitiated, and several appendices, including not only various documents (such as terriers, bylaws, and a view of frankpledge) but also a list of manorial officials and brief biographies of the most important individuals covered in the text. Together these make a very useful inclusion in the volume and help add depth to the reading of the text and documents presented.