A Replique to a Review in Vol. 33

Abstract

I write in response to the review by Andrew Breeze published in Mediaevistik 33 (2020) of The Chronicles of Medieval Wales and the March, ed. Ben Guy, Georgia Henley, Owain Wyn Jones, and Rebecca Thomas (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020). I am a member of the editorial board of the Medieval Texts and Cultures of Northern Europe series at Brepols in which the volume was published, and I was responsible for liaising with the editors regarding the peer review process and revisions arising from both the external reader’s report and my own reading of the manuscript. Given my inside perspective, from first proposal submission through to publication, on the very high standards that were upheld throughout, I feel an obligation to respond to Professor Breeze’s unfair criticism of the volume. Professor Breeze writes in his review that the chapters were “apparently done to a high standard” (291); I can confirm that there is nothing “apparent” about it: this is scholarship of the greatest rigour. Although some of the contributors to the volume are senior, well-established figures, all four of the editors are relatively junior scholars in the field. A critical review can have serious consequences for the careers and reputations of Early Career Researchers: this gives particular cause for concern when the basis for the negative review is largely irrelevant to the subject of the volume and is based on the idiosyncratic interests of the reviewer himself.