Nicholas Orme's English schools in the Middle Ages (London 1973; £7.25) was the first book I reviewed; a tour de force, it quickly became the standard work on the subject. The present volume marks the culmination of a career largely spent investigating the nurture of the young in the English Middle Ages. How does it differ from its predecessor? The historiographical introduction is especially interesting as a survey of the subject from the mid-seventeenth century, and pays generous tribute to contemporary scholars whose findings are incorporated here. Another obvious change is in the list of schools contained in both books: this new volume lists some 100 newly-identified schools, though we must add that both lists contain ‘probables’ and ‘possibles’, while a substantial proportion of these new entries are of west-country schools, reflecting both the author's interests and the publication of recent VCH volumes. Another feature of the expanded list is the new prominence given to the role of collegiate churches in providing schools, so complementing the recent volume (The late medieval English college and its context), edited by Clive Burgess and Martin Heale, while the section on the uses of education has been replaced by a survey chapter which pushes the story back to Roman Britain. What has not changed is Orme's gift for lucid exposition and his explanations of technicalities to the non-specialist reader. The nature of the subject has also dictated a similar structure: general descriptions of what was taught in schools – grammar, above all – of teachers, and of school premises, are followed by five chronological chapters taking the story from 1100 to 1603. The result is some duplication of material. But this, and the author's endearing willingness to discern schools for which the evidence is doubtful, are small sums to pay for a work whose rich material embraces such diverse subjects as the relations between Church and State, continental influence on English education from the Romans to Elizabethan England, teacher shortages after the Black Death, boy bishops, the educational value of playground insults and, in 1540, the birth of a ‘national curriculum’ when Henry viii prescribed a uniform Latin grammar which went into its final printing in 1858. Orme's experience enables him to make confident judgements on big questions; he plays down the importance for schools of the advent of printing, he produces impressive evidence of the contribution made by the religious orders, stresses the Church's overall lack of concern for education at school level, and concludes that medieval and modern education are ‘the same thing in different circumstances’, for only the provision of universal education came later than 1603. The starting point for the modern study of medieval schools is the work of A. F. Leach; a hundred years from now the benchmark will be the writings of Nicholas Orme. The many maps and illustrations are a delight; the endnotes a constant irritation.