To cite from the author’s Introduction, ‘The aim of this book is to finally establish the tower-nave as a coherent “type” of early medieval building …’ (my italics). ‘Finally’ is a reference to the long history of tinkering with the subject since Micklethwaite first drew it to scholarly attention in Reference Micklethwaite1896. Since then it has mainly interested those concerned with the study of Anglo-Saxon church fabrics, who have occasionally nodded in the direction of post-Conquest examples; most recently, interpretations have sought to invoke documentary evidence, such as the late Anglo-Saxon Promotion Laws.

Dr Shapland has now widened the debate, both chronologically and in terms of the subject matter. To this extent the book’s title may be thought somewhat misleading, and the ‘early medieval’ of the above quotation a better reflection of its scope than ‘Anglo-Saxon’. The main text is arranged in two parts: synthesis and interpretation. Part I is a corpus of tower-naves, also in two sections. The first is a corpus of monastic tower-naves, immediately signalling a new approach, relegating to second place the corpus of ‘lordly’ tower-naves, which includes most of the ‘usual suspects’. The monastic examples are discussed in the context both of the tenth-century monastic reform movement at home and of the westwork tradition abroad. Well-known examples are invoked, such as Aachen and Corvey (whose inhabitants will be surprised to find that they live in the Rhineland, which is some 200km west of the Weser). Continental instances such as these, and comparanda at home, with Winchester Old Minster a prime example, give rise to ‘lordly’ emulation on a smaller scale.

The tower-nave as traditionally understood is at once a symbol of power and of status, and a proprietorial reflection of the association of kingship with royal churches, though there is some danger of over-interpretation here, when the concept of regia aula can be shown at Deerhurst merely to be a synonym for ‘church’, with no human royalty implied. In an urban context, gate towers are a related form to the rural lord’s tower, as St Michael at the Northgate in Oxford demonstrates, and it is not accidental that chapels are associated with gates, either above them, as at Kingsgate in Winchester, or close by, like those dedicated to St Botolph around the City of London.

The widening of the debate, as noted above, leads to some chronological problems and potential misconceptions, as exemplified by the use of the vaulted staircase as a dating criterion. In the description of Broughton, the ‘archaic’ construction of the stair-turret is claimed to be unusual after c 1100, and the same term is applied to the late eleventh-century chapel of St Mary in Hastings Castle. In the discussion of Teignmouth, known only from illustrations, footnoted comparanda include Weaverthorpe, dated by Billson to 1110–20, and the bishop’s chapel at North Elmham, thought to date between 1091 and 1119. This line of argument is problematic at two levels. First, the somewhat derogatory overtones of the word ‘archaic’ might imply ‘inferior’ as well as ‘old-fashioned’, whereas it has been established (in the Brixworth monograph; Parsons and Sutherland Reference Parsons and Sutherland2013) that the technique was of mainstream late Antique origin, used in buildings of first importance. Second, the original discussion of this type of staircase in Zeitschrift für Archäologie des Mittelalters made it clear that it and its variants continued in use in major Romanesque buildings throughout the twelfth century, with examples in the cathedrals at Oxford and St David’s dated as late as 1158×80 and 1176×98 respectively. A viable unvaulted alternative does not appear to have been developed until the thirteenth century. The technique of the vaulted staircase may well have developed in the course of the twelfth century, but it was certainly not abandoned c 1100, as the author implies.

At the end of the final chapter Dr Shapland hopes ‘that this chapter has succeeded in rescuing Anglo-Saxon tower-nave churches from the status of an architectural curiosity to an influential part of the mainstream of early medieval built culture’. The section ‘Anglo-Saxon tower-naves and Norman castles’ certainly achieves that, introducing the concept of the ‘enmotted tower’ to show how the lordly tower formed the basis for the development of the Norman motte surmounted by a keep. It is worthy of remark that Towers of Lordship was published just over forty years after the appearance in volume 134 of the Archaeological Journal (coincidentally under my editorship) of ‘Five castle excavations’, the rather inconclusive report on the Royal Archaeological Institute’s project into the origins of the castle in England (Saunders et al Reference Saunders1977). So the tower-nave has secured a niche not only as a ‘coherent building type’ of Anglo-Saxon origin but as a major strand in the development of the castle as a symbol of status and military power. To that extent one might beg to question whether the book’s title underplays the full significance of its contribution to medieval building studies.