The Closing of the Middle Ages? England, 1471-1529.(Review)

Nobody admits to writing textbooks any longer, but the textbook's spiritual successor, the `interpretative synthesis', continues to flourish. Historians who take on the task of writing one soon find it to be an exacting exercise, posing questions of organization and exposition that are not easily resolved. Added to these generic difficulties is the problem of establishing a distinctive niche in what, at least as far as the history of later medieval England is concerned, is in danger of becoming an overcrowded market. Richard Britnell's The Closing of the Middle Ages? England, 1471-1529 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997; pp. 286. 45 [pounds sterling]; pb. 13.99 [pounds sterling]) …