Medieval York

David Palliser’s name will be a familiar one to all who have an interest in the history of the York. The dustjacket tells us that he ‘has been researching and publishing on the city of York for nearly fifty years’. Palliser’s serious research on the city began with his doctoral thesis, which led to the publication of The Reformation in York 1534–1553 (1971) and Tudor York (1979; rev. ante, xcvii [1982], 135–6). Later, his research on York took him outside the Tudor period, with his transcription of the York ‘husgabel roll’ of the 1280s (‘York’s earliest administrative record’, Yorkshire Archaeological Journal, l [1978]), and Domesday York (1990). He describes the literature on medieval York as ‘voluminous’ and ‘enormous’ in his preface, and there are few indeed who can boast such knowledge of and familiarity with it. The book is divided into seven main chronological sections, within which the material is organised by themes appropriate to the period. The development of the city is considered against the backcloth of regional and national history. York’s progress in comparison with other English cities is a frequent reference point, and has been a preoccupation of the author since the publication of his paper ‘Thirteenth-Century York— England’s Second City?’ (York Historian, xiv [1997]). The treatment becomes more sure-footed as the book progresses through the centuries and the sources become more numerous. The organisation, always a matter of difficulty in a book of this kind, is effective, and there is only occasional repetition

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