The essays collected here celebrate mark the distinguished career of Professor W. Mark Ormrod, reflecting the vibrancy and range of his scholarship on the structures, personalities and culture of ruling late medieval England. Encompassing political, administrative, Church and social history, the volume focusses on three main themes: monarchy, state and political culture. For the first, it explores Edward III's reactions to the deaths of his kinfolk and cases of political defamation across the fourteenth century. The workings of the "state" are examined through studies of tax and ecclesiastical records, the Court of Chivalry, fifteenth-century legislation, and the working practices of the privy seal clerk, Thomas Hoccleve. Finally, separate discussions of collegiate statutes and the household ordinances of Cecily, duchess of York consider the political culture of regulation and code-making.

GWILYM DODD is Associate Professor of History, University of Nottingham; CRAIG TAYLOR is a Reader in Medieval History at the University of York.

Contributors: Elizabeth Biggs, James Bothwell, Gwilym Dodd, Helen Killick, Helen Lacey, Joanna Laynesmith, Jonathan Mackman, Anthony Musson, Sarah Rees Jones, E.H. Watt.