The study of medieval art and architecture in Britain has often seemed a pathway closed to those attempting the drive toward poststylistic destinations. Perhaps this should be expected. The tenets of poststructuralism prompted work on a new art history, still under construction after thirty years, devoid of rigid historical categories and value-laden terms like high art, great buildings, or old masters, but in Britain antiquarians and enthusiasts long ago embraced material that might be considered part of a medieval substructure, issuing innumerable write-ups of country churches, document seals, and parochial baptismal fonts. Yet, this epistemological heritage constrains as much as it can empower. Talented scholars who eschew cathedrals to embrace remote parish churches or small abbeys do not want for secondary sources, but the segmentation of this historiography, often prizing detailed study over integrated knowledge, can impede the production of overarching conclusions despite the promising size of the samples. Ambitious investigations yield only coffee table volumes of the finest examples. Consequently, the capability to synthesize and organize masses of material across the landscape still determines the success of such projects, regardless of the methods applied.

Despite sustained interest in medieval Britain, the painted images that ubiquitously adorned its churches before the austerities of Reformation have been largely overlooked for the past 125 years, excepting some midcentury publications from E. W. Tristam. Thus, Roger Rosewell's Medieval Wall Paintings in English and Welsh Churches faces a weighty historiographic responsibility, but this challenge seems minor compared to the loss of the artifacts themselves. “Of around ten thousand [extant] medieval churches, fewer than ten per cent retain significant remains of their original painting schemes” (1). Of course, this still leaves a host of examples across the landscape for Rosewell to explain and classify so he employs direct language to answer a series of basic questions, prioritizing the use and subject matter of these images. “When were the paintings made? What do they show? Who made them? How were they made? Why were they made? Why did the Church stop making them? Where can I see more?” (5). These first six queries set out the book's chapters, while the gazetteer of churches answers the final question.

Such a transparent structure fits well with the introductory nature of the book. Scholars may be eager to move on to finer points of discussion, but Rosewell does not assume his reader has a deep knowledge of the Middle Ages. He walks through basic historical and stylistic distinctions, dividing the era between Anglo-Saxon, Romanesque, Thirteenth Century, Fourteenth Century, Fifteenth Century, and the End of the Middle Ages. Readers are patiently told that “contrary to some assumptions it is clear that most artists were not monks … but lay professionals” (111). No citations punctuate his text, and few scholars are mentioned by name. At times a student of Christian art might encounter slow patches, like the detailed recounting of the stages of the Passion of Christ (49ff.), but the overall breadth of material should provide everyone with new information. Readers can learn that the Harrowing of Hell vignette derives from the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus (51) and that most green pigments employ verdigris, a compound made from copper sheets soaked in acid (140).

The best insights come from Rosewell's fixation on classifying and explaining the varying subjects found in these paintings. This points up the liturgical sympathies of many painted scenes and, most interestingly, the divergence of painting and stained glass in their visual vocabularies. These media rarely interact, in contrast to the synergies seen between sculptures and paintings; certain motifs, like the Three Living and Three Dead or the Sunday Christ, never appear in glazing programs, and the Seven Sacraments were not painted onto church walls. The attention to the religious significance of each image, assumedly as an assist to a post-Christian readership, promotes the conjecture that paint was thought a more appropriate vehicle for messages of admonition rather than inspiration (205), but Rosewell leaves the matter here since any expansion into a larger, unified idea about wall paintings would go beyond his immediate questions.

Those scholastic professionals looking to further their understanding of the Middle Ages will benefit most from the choice photographs and the catalog of wall painting sites. Detailed color images fill the pages, and the photographs provided by c b newham of Alice de la Poles's effigy tomb at Ewelme (figs. 212–15) testify to the production values that distinguish this work. Within the cramped lower chamber of her fifteenth-century memorial an Annunciation has been painted on the ceiling, unseen by all except the duchess of Suffolk's stone cadaver. Rosewell introduces these vivid photographs without elaborating on Gabriel's prominent hand gestures toward the Virgin Mary or the curious creature painted above Alice's feet with a mammal's head and a snake's body emerging from the robes of John the Baptist (194). Nor does he attempt any explanation of the benefits such images may have provided the deceased. Such questions are beyond the book's remit, but any scholar or inquiring mind can begin her own investigation by turning to the subject guide for a list of extant images of the Annunciation (308ff.) or of St. John the Baptist (334). For those interested in visiting other paintings in the region, the gazetteer details places in Oxfordshire where wall paintings can be found, from Beckley to Yarnton.

This gazetteer provides the major academic dividend on the author's pursuit of organization and clarity. The larger synthesis and interpretation of this corpus of church paintings still remains for the talented scholars mentioned in Rosewell's concluding pages (223ff.), but the county-by-county catalog will go some way toward enabling the research. Rosewell has provided a much-needed book, accessible to enthusiasts but also a useful, reliable companion for scholars traveling the field, making their way toward a broader, inclusive picture of Britain's medieval heritage.