Fourteenth Century England has quickly established for itself a deserved reputation for its scope and scholarship and for admirably filling a gap in the publication of medieval studies. HISTORY This collection represents the fruits of new research, by both established and young scholars, on the politics, society and culture of England and its dependencies in the fourteenth century. Drawing on a diverse range of documentary, literary and material evidence, the studies offer a range of methods, from micro-history and prosopography to the study of institutions, texts and events. The early fourteenth century provides a particular focus of interest, with studies contributing new reflections on the personnel of parliament, the household of Edward II, the politics of Edward III's minority, and reactions to the great famine of 1315-22 and the Black Death of 1348-9. The wars withScotland and France give the opportunity for significant new assessments of international diplomacy, the role of the mariner in the logistics of war, English loyalties in Gascony and the pious practices of medieval knights. Richlytextured with personal and local detail, these new studies provide numerous insights into the lives of great and small in this tumultuous period of medieval history. W. Mark Ormrod is Professor of Medieval History atthe University of York. Contributors: Benoit Grevin, Alison K. McHardy, J.S. Hamilton, Guilhem Pepin, Eliza Hartrich, Phil Bradford, J.S. Bothwell, Craig Lambert, Andrew Ayton, Graham St John, Christopher Phillpotts

London's Spitalfields Market was the location of one of the city's largest archaeological excavations, carried out by MOLA between 1991 and 2007. This book presents the archaeological and documentary evidence for medieval activity here, on the north-eastern fringe of the historic city, and the site of the Augustinian priory and hospital of St Mary without Bishopsgate, later known as St Mary Spital. Large areas of the medieval precinct have been explored, making this by far the most intensively investigated medieval hospital, and one of the most extensively investigated monastic establishments, in Britain. Founded in 1197, rebuilt on a larger scale and refounded in 1235, the hospital catered primarily for London's sick poor. A pre-existing extramural and extraparochial cemetery became the priory's principal cemetery. As the priory continued to attract patrons and wealth, it expanded its precinct and carried out major building programmes. By the 15th century the small hospital had become one of the largest Augustinian priories in southern England. Medical treatment in the 14th century is illustrated by remarkable evidence from the canons' infirmary with its attached pharmacy; a trend towards secularisation in the 14th and 15th centuries is shown by the hamlet of timber houses and workshops that grew around the cemetery. An exceptional survival was the charnel crypt of the 14th-century cemetery chapel, which is preserved today under Bishops Square.

Excavations on the south side of Cheapside found evidence for Roman timber buildings and pits dating to the later 1st and 2nd centuries AD, and a masonry building constructed after c AD 125. The main west-east road through Londinium lay immediately north of the site. Evidence for later Roman occupation was limited by modern truncation. No medieval ground surfaces survive, but the site was reoccupied from the 10th century with at least one substantial building existing by the 13th century. Pit and well groups include late 13th- or early 14th-century vessels associated with the wine trade and early 14th-century kitchenware.

The Royal Navy victualling yard was excavated in 1983-8 as part of the Royal Mint site. Founded in 1560, on the site of a Black Death cemetery and the suppressed Cistercian abbey of St Mary Graces, it was the first large-scale naval food supply base in Britain and remained the principal one until the 18th century. The yard closed in 1785, having proved inadequate for the needs of the expanding Georgian navy. A substantial part of the ground plan of the yard was recorded, including salt houses and pickling sheds, slaughterhouses and yards, bakeries, coopers workshops, storehouses, and the offices and dwellings of yard personnel. The evidence suggests that food processing was increasingly industrialised from the late 17th century onwards. The excavated remains are compared to the substantial documentary evidence available, particularly two detailed plans of 1635 and 1776. The success and ultimate failure of the yard as a supply depot is assessed, including the extent to which former abbey buildings were reused by the navy and the deleterious effect this had. The work reported on here represents the most extensive excavation and post-excavation analysis of an early post-medieval naval victualling establishment in this country.