It is perhaps worth beginning with Dr Raven’s thoughts about the interconnected nature of warfare on land and warfare at sea in the middle ages. With its long coastland and its many resident gentlemen, Cornwall inevitably contributed to both these theatres of war throughout the 1300s and beyond. All the evidence points to this fact, from the naval pay rolls listing the hundreds of county ships that sailed in royal fleets through to the horse inventories recording the many Cornish knights who campaigned for the king. Dr Raven is surely right to emphasise the particular mobilisation of men and ships in the last quarter of the fourteenth century. It is in this period that the overlap of military personnel becomes most apparent, with many Cornish gentlemen serving the king at sea and these same folk mobilised at home to defend the county from enemy raiders. The evidence from Cornwall points to the fact that our understanding of this phase of the Hundred Years’ War – and of medieval warfare more generally – could be greatly enhanced by considered military service on land and at sea as an interlinked whole.

Overall, this is an interesting and useful volume which offers a substantial amount of historical flesh to clothe the archaeological bones for this intriguing period of Cornwall's history." Stretching out into the wild Atlantic, fourteenth-century Cornwall was a land at the very ends of the earth. Within itsboundaries many believed that King Arthur was a real-life historical Cornishman and that their natal shire had once been the home of mighty giants. Yet, if the county was both unusual and remarkable, it still held an integral place in the wider realm of England. The looming issue of ‘Cornish identity’ forms the subject of chapter three. (3) This chapter is framed by the debate over the ‘county community’ noted above, in particular Christine Carpenter’s oft-quoted suggestion that ‘There is now a strong case for banning the word "community" from all academic writing and an even stronger one for banning it from the vocabulary of politics’. (4) On the basis of a wide-ranging discussion that takes in the structure of county administration, the language of petitions written on behalf of the county’s inhabitants, shared spaces of collective action such as the county court, the legend of King Arthur, and the Cornish language, Drake argues ‘Leaving “community” for small groups, we should cautiously favour the term “commonalty” for the more expansive form of collective interactions represented by the county, a term that contemporaries often employed’ (p. 43). This county “commonalty” is then—necessarily—situated within both narrower and wider solidarities (links between Cornwall and Devon, for example, or between maritime regions) that formed part of the polyvalent and shifting patchwork of identities adopted by the people of Cornwall at different times and in different situations. Drake is careful to qualify his suggestion for the use of the word “commonalty” to describe the collective interests of the county. Certainly, in using this word historians will have to take great care (as Drake himself has done) not simply to import the word “commonalty” while resurrecting the concept of the older discredited model of county “community” that drew criticism from Carpenter in the first place. Chapter four continues to explore how the people of Cornwall thought of themselves and how the people of Cornwall were considered by others. This takes in travel and travellers, the meaning of the very words ‘Cornwall’ and ‘Cornish’, local customs, and further research on language and mythology. The use of comparative material is particularly enlightening here: the point is well made, for instance, that the law did not enforce an ethnic divide between a ‘native’ population and the English, as did the legal frameworks of Ireland and Wales. In both chapters three and four, Drake repeatedly hammers home his theme of connectivity. While Cornwall certainly existed as a distinct entity in the hearts and minds of its residents and played host to many distinctive customs and practices, ‘notions of Cornishness were defined in no small part through the county’s interactions with the rest of England, by Cornwall’s Englishness’ (p. 107). Throughout my book I was conscious that later medieval Cornwall held a place in a world far wider than England. There is evidence that Cornishmen were active in the Papal Curia; that they served as judges in Ireland; that they enforced Edward II’s lordship in Aquitaine; and that they traded with folk from as far off as the Baltic and the Mediterranean. Dr Raven’s thoughts about framing the issue of Cornish connectivity in the even wider setting of the Plantagenet Empire have much merit. There are, however, a few caveats to this. For a start, there is a danger that the nomenclature of ‘the Plantagenet Empire’ – a term never employed by contemporaries – suggests a sense of imperial uniformity that simply did not exist amongst the diverse lordships over which the kings of England ruled. In comparing and contrasting these domains, there is also a danger that we simply entrench the idea that England, Wales, Aquitaine, and so on each formed coherent entities bound together under the rulership of the Plantagenets. Within each of these domains there was enormous diversity which should not be glossed over. Any project on this subject should also strive to avoid simply comparing secondary literatures: we need boots on the ground and researchers in the archives to properly understand this ‘empire’. It will be essential reading on its subject. It will be used for a hundred years or more. It is substantial."

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Cornwall was not, of course, that mythical construct the ‘typical’ English county. As Drake makes clear in the opening section, the history of medieval Cornwall cannot be divorced from more recent debates about the county’s ‘exceptional’ nature, which in its most extreme form leads to the argument that Cornwall should be separated from England altogether. It is very much the nature and extent of the ties binding Cornwall and its inhabitants with each other and with the wider realm that forms the subject of this book. After noting the historiographical contradictions at the heart of our understanding of Cornwall’s history, Drake sets out the dynamic he wishes to pursue: ‘The main aim of this book, therefore, is to present an account of how fourteenth-century Cornwall cohered with the rest of the kingdom while remaining a quite remarkable place’ (p. xix). Drake’s Cornwall was both strongly connected to England and a very distinctive place with its own traditions, language, and idiosyncrasies. The rest of the book illuminates how these things can both be true at once.

Drawing on a wide range of published and archival material, this book seeks to show how Cornwall remained strikingly distinctive while still forming part of the kingdom. It argues that myths,saints, government, and lordship all endowed the name and notion of Cornwall with authority in the minds of its inhabitants, forging these people into a commonalty. At the same time, the earldom-duchy and the Crown together helped to link the county into the politics of England at large. With thousands of Cornishmen and women drawn east of the Tamar by the needs of the Crown, warfare, lordship, commerce, the law, the Church, and maritime interests, connectivity with the wider realm emerges as a potent integrative force. Drake puts medieval Cornwall on the map... [this book] will be essential reading on its subject. It will be used for a hundred years or more."Appendix II. Cornish Men-at-Arms and Mounted Archers who Served the King between c. 1298 and c. 1415 Sam Drake has produced a masterful and compelling work on Cornwall in the high medieval period, the first 'overarching study' in 60 years. [...] This book should be a must buy for all interested in medieval regional history and Cornwall." In responding to Dr Matt Raven’s review of Cornwall, Connectivity and Identity in the Fourteenth Century, I would first like to thank Dr Raven for both reading my book so closely and for writing such a comprehensive review. I do not have anything much to add to his comments about the book itself – his review is immensely thorough. In the cause of scholarly debate, however, I thought I would respond to some of the broader points that he felt my study raised about the history of later medieval England, Britain, and a wider Europe.