The earlier Tudors 1485-1558 (review)

250 Short notices of the world's budding masterpieces, a new study, more in keeping with the insights of the thinking of the last quarter century, is urgendy needed. Adrian Snodgrass Department of Architecture University of Sydney Henderson, George, Early medieval (Medieval Academy reprints for teaching No. 29), rpt University of Toronto Press, 1993; paper; pp. 272; 150 Ulustrations; R.R.P. CAN$19.95. First published in 1972, Early medieval was a readable and critical comparative treatment of early medieval art. More avowedly historical in focus than most studies in the samefield,the early chapters of this work, especially chapter four, "The uses of antiquity', firmly located the iconography of early medieval sacred art in the evolving historical discourse of late antiquity. It was also a rare work for not limiting its focus to tbe migration period and successor states—eschewing the German and Irish notions of a post-Roman 'golden age' and tracing the definite continuum of early medieval imagery into the early Romanesque. It synthesized more accessibly the material covered by Talbot-Rice's The Dark Ages and Lasko's Ars sacra. It is worthy enough of re-release, if only to remind the student of tbe value of an historical approach to art criticism. The 1993 reprint makes no changes to the text fhst published by Penguin in 1972. The illustrations, an integral part of Henderson's comparative method have, however, beenratherunfortunately darkened in tbe process of reproduction. Most remain legible; although, the reader will struggle to see the sculptures from Moissac (p. 91), and the fine detail on the Marmoutier sacramentary is totally lost (p. 117). Jonathan Wooding Department of History University of Sydney Mackie, J. D. The earlier Tudors 1485-1558, rpt Oxford and N.Y., Oxford University Press, 1994; paper; pp. xxii, 699; 7 maps; R.R.P. AUSS24.95. Mackie's history was acclaimed when itfirstappeared, forty years ago, as an excellent synthesis of current orthodoxy. Oxford's decision to produce a paperback edition illustrates just how much has been added to our knowledge Short notices 251 by detaUed scholarly work in the interval. Mackie's summaries of the economy, of the structure of society, of the demography of the kingdom, and of the role of nobility and gentry are dated. His assessment of Thomas Cromwell as simply a brilliant parliamentary manager seems eccentric to a post-Eltonian generation. Moreover, straight political history of this sort has gone out of fashion, so that the emphasis and approach of the volume seem limited and its underlying historical philosophy, the product of an age in which historical study at the better universities, whether or not it was overtly acknowledged, was one which prepared students for government and administration. The work remains, however, an admirable example of the difficult art of overview with aU the problems of structure and balance which are involved in producing an integrated and readable narrative. Sybil M . Jack Department of History Unversity of Sydney Mango, Cyril, Studies on Constantinople (Collected studies series, 394), Aldershot Variorum, 1993; cloth; pp. xii, 274; R.R.P. £52.00. Once again an exttemely useful addition to the Collected studies series, and a revealing contrast to Mango's earlier Variorum volume, Byzantium and its image. There w e were given wide-ranging historical and literary studies. Here we find the archaeologist and art historian at work. Despite generations of assiduous combing through the sources and a certain amount of archaeological activity, summed up in the work of Janin and Guilland and now most usefully in Midler-Wiener's Bildlexikon of Constantinopolitan topography, there still remain uncertainties about sites in tbe great city of Constantinople, and more seriously about the stages of the city's growth over the centuries. Some of the problems of detail are tackled here with Cyril Mango's usual trenchant common sense, profound knowledge of the city, and unrivalled familiarity with the sources, both textual and material. Thus there are papers (two previously unpublished) on the monumental columns and statuary of Constantinople (III, IV, IX-XI, XVI) and on the dates and dedications of churches (XU.-XV). Paper II draws attention to the under-utilized evidence of sixteenth- and nineteenth-century drawings...