This latest volume in the University of Hertfordshire Press’ acclaimed series of studies in regional and local history focuses on the corn production of the estates of the great Benedictine cathedral priory at Norwich and its consumption of grain products. Norwich Cathedral Priory was one of the wealthiest landowners in medieval East Anglia and this study is underpinned by the extensive accounting records of its estates and of its obedientiaries, the monastic officials in day to day charge of the internal economy of the priory, including the consumption of food and drink. Around 1300 Norwich Cathedral Priory had some sixty monks and perhaps some 240 other servants. At the Dissolution in 1538, there were twenty-two monks and at least another hundred servants. In both cases, one might add a population of young boys, doing menial tasks. The East Anglian economy was well developed commercially and it is one of the curiosities of late medieval England that Norwich, like other major urban monastic and collegiate institutions, hardly turned to the local markets for its provisions. Before the Black Death, about eighty per cent of the priory's grain supplies came from its demesnes and, except for the 1520s, the figure always remained above fifty per cent. The estates sent between fifty and seventy-five per cent of their annual production in wheat and malted barley to the priory. Even when demesnes were leased out, in the later fourteenth century and the fifteenth century, tenants were often bound to supply the priory with food rents. The Norwich estates had a notable concentration on spring planted crops, especially barley, and also on barley malt. Beyond this, they supplied some three-quarters of the priory's wheat, but most oats were purchased.

The sequences of accounts allow Slavin to examine the chronological, seasonal and regional patterns of crop disposal; the grains used for baking and brewing; transport of the crop to Norwich; the nature, layout and capacity of barns on the estates and at the ‘great granary’ at the priory; and the different types of loaf the convent baked. Slavin also considers the diet of the monks overall, contrasting it with what we know of Westminster Abbey and other houses, and the employment of bread and ale for charitable purposes. Occasionally the study needs a wider horizon than the financial documentation. The notion that there were no fruit and vegetables in the monk's diet is surely mistaken. The Norwich customary from around 1260 notes the blessing of apples at the feast of St James. Where other customaries, such as that of St Swithun's, Winchester, record similar events, we can see that fruit was especially popular. The area given over to gardens in the priory precinct also argues for the contribution they made to diet.

Philip Slavin's study of Norwich is a perceptive addition to our knowledge of the late medieval economy. It is wide-ranging in its command of the literature and its presentation of the detail from the accounting records, often in tabular form, is careful and well-judged. This is a thoughtful and welcome volume.