A remarkable private collection formed over the last thirty years is the focus of this richly illustrated book that introduces the reader to English silver spanning a century and a half from a little before the Tudor age (1485-1603) to the threshold of the Civil War (1642-51). This was a period when England changed out of all recognition. At the beginning it was still essentially a medieval country dominated by an autocratic king and a rich and powerful Church; by the end of the period the Church had lost virtually all of its power and, with the execution of Charles I in 1649, the monarchy itself was abolished. To a degree, this changing world is mirrored in the styles represented by the silver featuring in the collection. Besides setting the silver against its social and historical background the book examines the wide range of techniques used by silversmiths at the time to shape and adorn silver objects.

There has never been a display like it. This is the catalogue to an ambitious exhibition at the Goldsmiths' Hall, London, which will comprise 250 gold and silver objects and sets of objects spanning the history of the Church from the earliest possible times to the present day. A foreword by the Rt Revd Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury, and twelve essays by distinguished authorities will illustrate aspects of evolving liturgy and Church history such as the medieval Mass, Church patronage in the Middle Ages, and the English Reformation. Historical themes from post-Reformation centuries will include Catholic recusancy, the 17th- and 18th-century altar service and the medieval revivals that mirrored the Victorian Tractarian movement. Important commissions from the 1980s and 1990s for Lichfield Cathedral and York Minster will also be discussed. Essays will be accompanied by new photography of key objects, many of them the'secret' treasure of individual parish churches. The guiding principle of the exhibition is that all loans be in the possession of the Church or other religious foundations. Objects have been selected from cathedrals, Oxford colleges and'royal peculiars' such as St George's Chapel at Windsor. The majority are from parish churches great and small up and down the country.