New investigations into a pivotal era of the thirteenth century. The years between 1258 and 67 comprise one of the most influential periods in the Middle Ages in England. This turbulent decade witnessed a bitter power struggle between King Henry III and his barons over who should control the government of the realm. Before England eventually descended into civil war, a significant proportion of the baronage had attempted to transform its governance by imposing on the crown a programme of legislative and administrative reform far more radical and wide-ranging than Magna Carta in 1215. Constituting a critical stage in the development of parliament, the reformist movement would remain unsurpassed in its radicalism until the upheavals of the seventeenth century. Simon de Montfort, the baronial champion, became the first leader of a political movement to seize power and govern in the king's name. The essays collected here offer the most recent research into and ideas onthis pivotal period. Several contributions focus upon the roles played in the political struggle by particular sections of thirteenth-century society, including the Midland knights and their political allegiances, aristocratic women, and the merchant elite in London. The events themselves constitute the second major theme of this volume, with subjects such as the secret revolution of 1258, Henry III's recovery of power in 1261, and the little studied maritime theatre during the civil wars of 1263-7 being considered. Adrian Jobson is an Associate Lecturer at Canterbury Christ Church University. Contributors: Sophie Ambler, Nick Barratt, David Carpenter, PeterCoss, Mario Fernandes, Andrew H. Hershey, Adrian Jobson, Lars Kjaer, John A. McEwan, Tony Moore, Fergus Oakes, H.W. Ridgeway, Christopher David Tilley, Benjamin L. Wild, Louise J. Wilkinson.

Seals and Society arises from a major project investigating seals and their use in medieval Wales, the Welsh March and neighbouring counties in England. The first major study of seals in the context of one part of medieval Western European society, the volume also offers a new perspective on the history of medieval Wales and its periphery by addressing a variety of themes in terms of the insight that seals can offer the historian. Though the present study suggests important regional distinctions in the take-up of seals in medieval Wales, it is also clear that seal usage increased from the later twelfth century and spread widely in Welsh society, especially in those parts of Wales neighbouring England or where there had been an early English incursion. Through a series of chapters, the authors examine the ways in which seals can shed light on the legal, administrative, social and economic history of the period in Wales and its border region. Seals provide unique insights into the choices individuals, men and women, made in representing themselves to the wider world, and this issue is examined closely. Supported by almost 100 images gathered by the project team, the volume is of great interest to those working on seals, their motifs, their use and developments in their usage over the high and later Middle Ages.

A story of love, passion, tragedy and betrayal across two continents when naive computer programmer Madeleine has a chance meeting with worldly-wise translator Rick on a flight to Los Angeles. While staying at his log cabin in the mountains she is drawn into his shadowy past when he confronts his personal shame over his wife's death. Now carrying his child, their romance is interrupted when Madeleine returns to England to see her dying father but when Rick mysteriously disappears, Madeleine has little option than to marry her former boyfriend Jeff. Nearly two decades later and with a teenage son, she is astonished when a letter from Rick, now in London, asks her to contact him. They meet and he whisks her off to Paris for two days. They realise their love for each other has never died, Rick wants her to stay and spend their life together in Paris. She returns home torn between her duty to her family and love for Rick and wonders if she has the courage to make the right decision for her own happiness.