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Excavation to the immediate west of the castle revealed considerable evidence of occupation (probably not continuous) dating from c. 1200 to at least the mid-sixteenth century. Most of the structures uncovered were associated with the medieval burgh not the castle. The first timber buildings gave way to a fourteenth-century tannery, probably when the castle was in ruins and unoccupied. The tannery gave way to two phases of residential buildings, either of masonry or set in stone foundations. The latest of these structures were set against a new boundary wall, all probably dating to the mid-sixteenth century when the adjacent road, the Scores, was realigned. From an earlier period, Beaker sherds indicate prehistoric settlement, although no associated features could be identified. There are specialist reports on: `Coins' by Nicholas M McQ Holmes (635); `Small finds' by D Caldwell (635--45); `The inscribed stone' by John Higgitt (646--7); `Prehistoric pottery' by Helen Smith (647--8); `Medieval pottery' by George Haggerty & Robert Will (648--69); `Mammal bones' by Finbar McCormick (669--71); `Bird and fish bones' by Sheila Hamilton-Dyer (671--2); `The micromorphology of a buried soil' by Stephen Carter (672--4); `Palaeobotanical analysis of samples from period 3 pits A, B & C' by Coralie Mills (675).

Medieval Vision and Image in Early Christian England. By George Henderson. (New York: Cambridge University Press. 1999. Pp. xviii, 292. $90.00.) The wealth, variety, and inventiveness to be found in the art of early medieval Britain and Ireland owe much to the interaction of cultures. In Ireland and in the Celtic-speaking areas of Britain (British, Pictish, and Scottish), distinctive regional and 'national' traditions developed in the post-Roman period drawing to some extent on older traditions of Celtic curvilinear design. Elsewhere, in the English kingdoms, Germanic-speaking settlers from the Continent ('AngloSaxons') were, by around 600, patronizing work in which interlacing animals were a dominant motif. The visual culture of this phase is mainly represented by high status secular metalwork, often of superlative quality, such as can be seen, in an English context, in the grave-furnishings of the ship-burial at Sutton Hoo. The gradual adoption of Christianity by the English during the course of the seventh century, partly following the papal mission led by Augustine of Canterbury from Rome and Gaul and partly from the already Christian Irish, brought Insular cultures into fruitful contact with each other and with the Continent. One of the most striking products of this interaction was the development of a shared artistic style, a visual koine, now usually known as the 'Insular' style. This style is probably best known in the decoration of the Insular gospel-books of Durrow, Lindisfarne, and Kells. George Henderson has written widely on medieval art and, in recent years, on early Insular art. His Vision and Image is an imaginative and stimulating exploration of art produced in England during the seventh and eighth centuries within wider Insular and European contexts. His approach is thematic rather than chronological, and the thickets of controversy on dating and provenance are therefore largely, and for present purposes justifiably, ignored. There are rewarding discussions of familiar objects such as the Lindisfarne Gospels, the Franks Casket, and the Ruthwell Cross, but the arguments also make much use of less familiar and sometimes of lost material. The Insular style of manuscripts such as the Book of Durrow is seen as a dynamic "visual experiment" drawing on a range of secular traditions. This new style had the dual advantage of being familiar and accessible to secular patrons and viewers and also, as can be inferred from its widespread adoption, of "acceptability in many parts of the British Isles." In line with recent thinking, the Prankish contribution to seventh-century Anglo-Saxon visual culture is stressed. Henderson speculates, plausibly, that "working drawings" may have played a role in the transfer of motifs from secular metalwork to the ornamentation of Christian manuscripts. He then investigates Anglo-Saxon responses to visual sources imported following the adoption of Christianity, rightly stressing that these imports may have been in very different styles. …