Discussion of display through a range of artefacts and in a variety of contexts: family and lineage, social distinction and aspiration, ceremony and social bonding, and the expression of power and authority. Medieval culture was intensely visual. Although this has long been recognised by art historians and by enthusiasts for particular media, there has been little attempt to study social display as a subject in its own right. And yet,display takes us directly into the values, aspirations and, indeed, anxieties of past societies. In this illustrated volume a group of experts address a series of interrelated themes around the issue of display and do so in a waywhich avoids jargon and overly technical language. Among the themes are family and lineage, social distinction and aspiration, ceremony and social bonding, and the expression of power and authority. The media include monumental effigies, brasses, stained glass, rolls of arms, manuscripts, jewels, plate, seals and coins. Contributors: MAURICE KEEN, DAVID CROUCH, PETER COSS, CAROLINE SHENTON, ADRIAN AILES, FREDERIQUE LACHAUD, MARIAN CAMPBELL, BRIAN and MOIRA GITTOS, NIGEL SAUL, FIONN PILBROW, CAROLINE BARRON and JOHN WATTS.

'Geeks triumph over the forces of darkness: nothing could have given me greater pleasure. Combining an exciting story with scrupulous research, Caroline Shenton has done her unlikely heroes proud' - Lucy Worsley As Hitler prepared to invade Poland during the sweltering summer of 1939, men and women from across London's museums, galleries and archives formulated ingenious plans to send the nation's highest prized objects to safety. Using stately homes, tube tunnels, slate mines, castles, prisons, stone quarries and even their own homes, a dedicated bunch of unlikely misfits packed up the nation's greatest treasures and, in a race against time, dispatched them throughout the country on a series of top-secret wartime adventures. National Treasures highlights a moment from our history when an unlikely coalition of mild-mannered civil servants, social oddballs and metropolitan aesthetes became the front line in the heritage war against Hitler. Caroline Shenton shares the interwoven lives of ordinary people who kept calm and carried on in the most extraordinary of circumstances in their efforts to save the Nation's historic identity.

Fresh perspectives on many facets - political, social, legal, military, and diplomatic - of the reign of one of the most important late medieval kings. With a sharp focus on high politics, this is a cohesive and exemplary collection of rewarding scholarship. HISTORY The studies in this book add colour and depth to the reign of one of the most important and fascinating of late medieval kings. New research addresses received ideas about Edward III's kingship, including the way he came to power and how he kept it; his use of nobility and sergeants-at-arms [his political and military elite]; hispreoccupation with justice; military campaigns in the Hundred Years War; and the propaganda and packaging of his rule, both in terms of his English throne and his claims to France. The collection is drawn together in a critical introduction written by Chris Given-Wilson and Michael Prestwich. Contributors: CAROLINE SHENTON, JAMES BOTHWELL, DAVID GREEN, ANTHONY MUSSON, RICHARD PARTINGTON, ANDREW AYTON, W.M. ORMROD, CRAIG TAYLOR, A.K. McHARDY, CLIFFORD J. ROGERS, MICHAEL BENNETT.

When the brilliant classical architect Charles Barry won the competition to build a new, Gothic, Houses of Parliament in London he thought it was the chance of a lifetime. It swiftly turned into the most nightmarish building programme of the century. From the beginning, its design, construction and decoration were a battlefield. The practical and political forces ranged against him were immense. The new Palace of Westminster had to be built on acres of unstable quicksand, while the Lords and Commons carried on their work as usual. Its river frontage, a quarter of a mile long, needed to be constructed in the treacherous currents of the Thames. Its towers were so gigantic they required feats of civil engineering and building technology never used before. And the interior demanded spectacular new Gothic features not seen since the middle ages. Rallying the genius of his collaborator Pugin; flanking the mad schemes of a host of crackpot inventors, ignorant busybodies and hostile politicians; attacking strikes, sewage and cholera; charging forward three times over budget and massively behind schedule, it took twenty-five years for Barry to achieve victory with his 'Great Work' in the face of overwhelming odds, and at great personal cost. Mr Barry's War takes up where its prize-winning prequel The Day Parliament Burned Down left off, telling the story of how the greatest building programme in Britain for centuries produced the world's most famous secular cathedral to democracy.

In the early evening of 16 October 1834, to the horror of bystanders, a huge ball of fire exploded through the roof of the Houses of Parliament, creating a blaze so enormous that it could be seen by the King and Queen at Windsor, and from stagecoaches on top of the South Downs. In front of hundreds of thousands of witnesses the great conflagration destroyed Parliament's glorious old buildings and their contents. No one who witnessed the disaster would ever forget it. The events of that October day in 1834 were as shocking and significant to contemporaries as the death of Princess Diana was to us at the end of the 20th century - yet today this national catastrophe is a forgotten disaster, not least because Barry and Pugin's monumental new Palace of Westminster has obliterated all memory of its 800 year-old predecessor. Rumours as to the fire's cause were rife. Was it arson, terrorism, the work of foreign operatives, a kitchen accident, careless builders, or even divine judgement on politicians? In this, the first full-length book on the subject, Parliamentary Archivist Caroline Shenton unfolds the gripping story of the fire over the course of that fateful day and night. In the process, she paints a skilful portrait of the political and social context of the time, including details of the slums of Westminster and the frenzied expansion of the West End; the plight of the London Irish; child labour, sinecures and corruption in high places; fire-fighting techniques and floating engines; the Great Reform Act and the new Poor Law; Captain Swing and arson at York Minster; the parlous state of public buildings and records in the Georgian period; and above all the symbolism which many contemporaries saw in the spectacular fall of a national icon.

When the brilliant classical architect Charles Barry won the competition to build a new, Gothic, Houses of Parliament in London he thought it was the chance of a lifetime. It swiftly turned into the most nightmarish building programme of the century. From the beginning, its design, construction and decoration were a battlefield. The practical and political forces ranged against him were immense. The new Palace of Westminster had to be built on acres of unstable quicksand, while the Lords and Commons carried on their work as usual. Its river frontage, a quarter of a mile long, needed to be constructed in the treacherous currents of the Thames. Its towers were so gigantic they required feats of civil engineering and building technology never used before. And the interior demanded spectacular new Gothic features not seen since the middle ages. Rallying the genius of his collaborator Pugin; flanking the mad schemes of a host of crackpot inventors, ignorant busybodies, and hostile politicians; attacking strikes, sewag,e and cholera; charging forward three times over budget and massively behind schedule, it took twenty-five years for Barry to achieve victory with his 'Great Work' in the face of overwhelming odds, and at great personal cost. Mr Barry's War takes up where its prize-winning prequel The Day Parliament Burned Down left off, telling the story of how the greatest building programme in Britain for centuries produced the world's most famous secular cathedral to democracy.