landholdings like the Bishops or smaller holdings like the Bealds, to the Stoperfield/Stubberfields holding only one tenement.
   The final chapter on ‘Hadlow in a Wealden Context’ acts as a comprehensive conclusion with the admirable objective of alerting ‘those who study other Wealden parishes to identify more evidence, which may strengthen some of the observations made ... about Hadlow’. The authors also take the opportunity of commenting briefly on the changes between the date of the original Survey in 1460 and the 1581-3 copy.
   The publication of e-books does raise many questions for historians – both readers and authors – and some potential problems, but the accessibility of such a valuable and well-produced work, which uses the tools of the technology so effectively and will be regularly updated, can only be welcomed. And there is the promise of a printed book for those who cannot access the web pages.

ELIZABETH EDWARDS

Trade and Economic Developments, 1450-1550. The Experience of Kent, Surrey and Sussex. By Mavis E. Mate. 261 pp. 9 tables, 2 maps. Boydell Press, 2006. Hardback £50. ISBN 1 184383 1899.

There is such a wealth of detail in this very traditional economic and social history that the reader is almost overwhelmed. As the culmination of Professor Mate’s work on late medieval South-east England, it is a tour de force which provides comprehensive evidence of the economic activities of a region which comprises so many different sub-regions. The period covered, 1450-1550, has been carefully chosen to deal with transitional change and expansion. By going beyond the early Reformation period, Mate has been able to show the impact of the changes in landholding alongside, and together with, the ongoing economic change and developments. The hundred years chosen consolidates the recovery from the Black Death and the final stages of the feudal system and sees the introduction of new products and the import of new skills. Mate dwells much on the importance of the transition from ale to beer-brewing, setting the foundations for the later large scale industry. The conclusions at the end of each chapter are very brief summaries and don’t do full justice to the preceding nuanced sections. They thus leave much work for the reader to do, which makes this an excellent textbook for the diligent student!
   The early chapters provide useful basic background and two very clear maps on the towns and markets in the South-east, including those that are identified as ‘straddlers’, small markets like Warehorne in Kent, which persisted into the sixteenth century without developing any ‘occupational diversity’. Right from the start Mate acknowledges that the landholding