Complete Poetical Works of Geoffrey Chaucer Now First Put into Modern English Book

This is a hard book to review. On the one hand it contains a wealth of information and is S in-depth as can be, while avoiding the usual pitfalls of mixing legends and pseudohistory with facts. On the other hand, the book is very dry, the narrative is very academic and a lot of the material is overly concerned with hagiography, churches, and graveyards.

There is a lot of helpful information, such as a reference for translating ogam script and depictions of known variants of the chi-rho symbol as well as locations for every place they appear including OS map referemces. There are plenty of photos and diagrams.

The book isn't exactly a history but rather a reference and tally of primary evidence of the early medieval south-west. There is some wonderful information that was new to me, including Irish migrations and some placename origins. The chapters on cornish saints and churches I found to be very hard going and strugged to maintain my interest, I fell asleep on the book more than once and found my mind wandering. This isn't a book for everyone, perhaps best suited for those with an interest in early south western christianity because there's a lot of it in here. I would almost give it 3 stars if it wasnt for all the archaeological information accompanied with exact locations to make future day trips to many places a bit more interesting.