This book explores examples of this process of invention and addresses the complex interaction of past and present in a fascinating study of ritual and symbolism.

One of the most unusual contributions to the crusading era was the idea of the leper knight - a response to the scourge of leprosy and the shortage of fighting men which beset the Latin kingdom in the twelfth century. The Order of St Lazarus, which saw the idea become a reality, founded establishments across Western Europe to provide essential support for its hospitaller and military vocations. This book explores the important contribution of the English branch of the order, which by 1300 managed a considerable estate from its chief preceptory at Burton Lazars in Leicestershire. Time proved the English Lazarites to be both tough and tenacious, if not always preoccupied with the care of lepers. Following the fall of Acre in 1291 they endured a period of bitter internal conflict, only to emerge reformed and reinvigorated in the fifteenth century. Though these late medieval knights were very different from their twelfth-century predecessors, some ideologies lingered on, though subtly readapted to the requirements of a new age, until the order was finally suppressed by Henry VIII in 1544. The modern refoundation of the order, a charitable institution, dates from 1962. The book uses both documentary and archaeological evidence to provide the first ever account of this little-understood crusading order.DAVID MARCOMBE is Director of the Centre for Local History, University of Nottingham.

"[...]at a cost of £20,000; and Opie Street has been opened from London Street to the Castle Hill. Of course, the principal places of business are mostly clustered together, either in the Market Place or in the nearest streets; but in former times, every business in Norwich had its particular row or station. Thus, in ancient deeds, we read of the Glover's Row, Mercers Row, Spicer's Row, Needler's Row, Tawer's Row, Ironmonger's Row; also of the Apothecary's Market, the Herb Market, the Poultry Market, the Bread Market, the Flesh Market, the Wool and Sheep Market, the Fish Market, the Hay Market, the Wood Market, the Cheese Market, the Leather Market, the Cloth-cutter's Market, the White-ware Market; all of which we find mentioned before the reign of Richard II.; for about the latter[...]".