Provides a comprehensive history of what is now considered England's most famous surviving medieval city, covering nearly a thousand years

Evidence from Records of Early English Drama, social, literary and cultural sources are drawn together in order to investigate how performances within the late Middle Ages were both shaped by, and shaped, the public image of women."--BOOK JACKET.

An analysis of merchant lives in three northern British cities in the later middle ages.

Studies draw on history, archaeology, art history and literature to examine the phenomenon of the court and its relationship with outlying and distant areas.

St William of York achieved the unique distinction of being elected archbishop of York twice and being canonised twice. Principally famous for his role in the York election dispute and the miracle of Ouse bridge, William emerges from this, the first full-length study devoted to him, as a significant figure in the life of the church in northern England and an interesting character in his own right. William's father, Herbert the Chamberlain, was a senior official in the royal treasury at Winchester who secured William's initial preferment at York; the importance of family connections, particularly after his cousin Stephen became king, forms a recurring theme. Dr Norton describes how he was early on involved in the primacy dispute with Canterbury, and after his father attempted to assassinate Henry I, he spent some years abroad with Archbishop Thurstan. William knew some of the earliest Yorkshire Cistercians, who were subsequently among his fiercest opponents during his first episcopate, which is here reconsidered in the light of new evidence: he emerges from the affair with much greater credit, St Bernard with correspondingly less. Retiring to Winchester after his deposition, he was elected archbishop a second time in 1153, but died the next year amid suspicions of murder. Miracles at his tomb in 1177 led to his veneration as a saint. The book concludes with the bull of canonisation issued by Pope Honorius III in 1226. Dr CHRISTOPHER NORTON is Reader in Art and Architecture at the University of York.