Many medieval archaeologists over the last forty years have gratefully turned to Ian Goodall when faced with crates of congealed iron lumps. He provided a lifetime's expertise in analysing the remains of excavated ironwork, demonstrated by his legacy of around 140 specialist reports published between 1970 and 2007. This knowledge was underpinned by his PhD, awarded by Cardiff University in 1980. His unexpected and sudden death in 2006 accelerated the publication of his thesis (posthumously edited by Christopher Gerrard), so that future generations could approach with confidence material that was so familiar to him. This book is essentially the typescript of Goodall's thesis, with a couple of provisos: the bibliography has been updated to include unpublished items which subsequently appeared in print; and the dating of material from Winchester has been corrected in accordance with Goodall's published reports of Reference Goodall1990 (Goodall 1990). It also contains a full list of his publications, an invaluable aid for researchers looking for further comparisons.

The book bridges the gap between Salzman's historical account (Reference Salzman1967) of medieval tools and artefacts, which produced accurate terminology and dates but few objects, and the mass of objects in museums, with no date and little provenance. Before Goodall began his research, the main resource for iron-finds specialists was the London Museum Medieval Catalogue (Ward Perkins Reference Ward Perkins1967). His contribution was to bring together documentary evidence with excavated objects from dated stratigraphy and known sites, ranging from about 1066 to 1540. His objects were mainly trawled from the spate of rescue excavations, in both town and country, which took place in the 1960s and 1970s. The bibliography demonstrates the nationwide scope of his searches.

The iron objects are displayed with exemplary clarity, picture and catalogue side by side, providing the ideal primary reference for small-finds authors. The account begins with the forge itself and moves on to sections on all the major craft tools: metalwork, carpentry, masonry, textile, leather and agricultural. This is followed by the products: knives, building fittings, locks and keys, household equipment, personal accessories and horse gear. Excluded are weapons, armour and spurs. Each chapter begins with an overview of the items and their various forms, providing documentary evidence, a discussion of how the object was used and an explanation of terminology. Useful diagrams indicate the precise name for each part of a tool. This is followed by an illustrated catalogue, a definitive national study of iron tools and fittings. Objects are arranged in typological sequences and depicted in clear outline drawings which facilitate easy recognition.

Goodall was researching the buried iron fragments at the same time as this reviewer was working on the decorative medieval iron still in situ (Geddes Reference Geddes1999). The two books complement each other, with Goodall's providing evidence for the tools used to make the doors that survive: for instance, his sequence of roves from dated stratigraphy matches those found on dated church doors.

John Clark provides a new preface to the book and rightly comments that although archaeology has moved on since 1980, there is no other compendium of this nature that embraces the totality of medieval ironwork from all social contexts. It demonstrates how much ironwork underpinned all other craft activity. This is a book with a long shelf life, making fundamental and specialised information readily accessible to a wider readership. A rust-stained copy should be on hand in every medieval finds hut.