The exercise of lordship in England is examined in relation to personal and tenurial dependence, estate management, and changing social and economic conditions. There are papers on the formation of kingdoms and national identities in early medieval Britain and Ireland, on Anglo-Saxon lordship, and on lords and peasants in Byzantium. In contributions on medieval education the institutions of late medieval Oxford are reassessed; the provisions made for their archives by medieval corporations, and the practical importance of muniments explained; and, at the other end of the spectrum, material from across western Europe is deployed to show how images were used to convey non-verbal messages to the non-literate.

Contributors MARGARET ASTON, TREVOR ASTON, PAUL BRAND, JEREMY CATTO, T.M. CHARLES-EDWARDS, PETER COSS. RALPH EVANS, ROSAMOND FAITH, I.M.W. HARVEY, P.D.A. HARVEY, JAMES HOWARD-JOHNSTON, ERIC JOHN, N.E. STACY, MALCOLM UNDERWOOD.