First published in 1987. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

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This collection forges new ground in the discussion of aristocratic and royal women, their relationships with their objects, and medieval geography. It explores how women’s geographic and familial networks spread well beyond the borders that defined men’s sense of region and how the movement of their belongings can reveal essential information about how women navigated these often-disparate spaces. Beginning in early medieval Scandinavia, ranging from Byzantium to Rus', and multiple lands in Western Europe up to 1500, the essays span a great spatio-temporal range. Moreover, the types of objects extend from traditionally studied works like manuscripts and sculpture to liturgical and secular ceremonial instruments, icons, and articles of personal adornment, such as textiles and jewelry, even including shoes.

Suzanne Belperron (1900-1983) is one of the twentieth century's greatest jewellers; she is now achieving near iconic status in the jewellery world and in the auction rooms. Her reputation is as high as that of any of the great French Art Deco jewellers. Amazingly, she never signed her work, considering it so distinctive that it was instantly recognisable. She worked first for the famous firm of Rene Boivin, but in her thirties was encouraged by admirers to set up on her own. She opened a tiny shop on the Rue de Chateaudon and began selling her new designs, which were totally in vogue with modern taste and lusted after by a young and hip generation. It seemed destined that no book would ever be devoted to her work because it was thought that her archive was destroyed in a fire. However, the discovery of that archive has made this book possible. It has revealed all the drawings for her jewellery as well as order books containing a who's who of names of her customers. These ranged from royalty like the Duchess of Windsor to writers like Colette, to famous stars like Frank Sinatra. Her fame spread wide and her pieces were constantly illustrated in magazines like Vogue as well as featured on the big screen in Hollywood movies. A forthcoming sale of a huge amount of her work (Sothebys 2011) has resulted in a great number of exceptional photographs, which illustrate this book. Dedicated to the distinctive and highly imaginative works of Suzanne Belperron, one of the pioneers of modern jewellery ILLUSTRATIONS: 250 colour illustrations