These two volumes collect and update Professor Stones's papers on Arthurian manuscript illustration, one of her continuing passions. These essays explore aspects of the iconography of the romances of Chretien de Troyes in French verse, the lengthy Lancelot-Grail romance in French prose, and other versions of the chivalrous exploits of King Arthur's knights - the best-sellers of the Middle Ages. Illustrated copies of these romances survive in huge numbers from the early thirteenth century through the beginnings of print, and were read for their text and their pictures throughout the French-speaking world. Of special interest is the cultural context in which these popular works were made and disseminated, by scribes and artists whose work encompassed all kinds of books, for patrons whose collecting was wide-ranging, including secular books alongside works of liturgical and devotional interest.

The so-called chasuble of Thomas Becket (1118-1170) is one of the most magnificent medieval textiles in the Mediterranean region. Richly decorated with ornaments, fabulous animals and figures in lavish gold embroidery with Arabic inscriptions, this precious liturgical garment provides impressive proof of the reutilisation of the Islamic arts in the Christian world. Venerated as a relic of St Thomas of Canterbury, the chasuble was produced in Spanish-Muslim workshops and probably reached Italy as a donation to the Cathedral of Fermo in about 1200. Despite its outstanding artistic quality and fascinating history, this magnificent garment has never hitherto been the subject of a detailed study. Richly illustrated with numerous details, this volume investigates the meaning of the inscriptions and motifs, examines manufacturing techniques and the function of the chasuble, traces its "biography" and places it within the historical context of the political, economic and cultural situation in the Mediterranean region.

Chretien de Troyes was France's great medieval poet--inventor of the genre of courtly romance and popularizer of the Arthurian legend. The forty-four surviving manuscripts of his work (ten of them illuminated) pose a number of questions about who used these books and in what way. In "Sealed in Parchment," Sandra Hindman scrutinizes both text and images to reveal what the manuscripts can tell us about medieval society and politics.

Medieval prayer books held not only the devotions and meditations of Christianity, but also housed, slipped between pages, sundry notes, reminders, and ephemera, such as pilgrims' badges, sworn oaths, and small painted images. Many of these last items have been classified as manuscript illumination, but Kathryn M. Rudy argues that these pictures should be called, instead, parchment paintings, similar to postcards. In a delightful study identifying this group of images for the first time, Rudy delineates how these objects functioned apart from the books in which they were kept. Whereas manuscript illuminations were designed to provide a visual narrative to accompany a book's text, parchment paintings offered a kind of autonomous currency for exchange between individuals-people who longed for saturated color in a gray world of wood, stone, and earth. These small, colorful pictures offered a brilliant reprieve, and Rudy shows how these intriguing and previously unfamiliar images were traded and cherished, shedding light into the everyday life and relationships of those in the medieval Low Countries.