Illuminated manuscripts survive in great numbers from the Middle Ages. They are often beautifully preserved, enabling us to appreciate the skilled design and craftsmanship of the people who created them.

Christopher de Hamel describes each stage of production from the preparation of the vellum, pens, paints and inks to the writing of the scripts and the final decoration and illumination of the book. He then examines the role of the stationer or bookshop in co-ordinating book production and describes the supply of exemplars and the accuracy of texts. He follows the careers of a number...

Of all the medieval craftsmen, the goldsmith worked on the two most valuable materials - gold and silver - and set them with rare stones and classical gems. He produced a wide variety of objects, from cups and chalices to rings, seals, and crowns. Such rich objects were often put to the service of God, and today it is in the treasuries of churches that we find much of the surviving material.

Combining documentary, archaeological, and pictorial evidence, the author describes how goldsmiths worked for both the Church and for royalty. By the fifteenth century their trade was centred in...

Herodotus was the first writer in the West to conceive the value of creating a record of the recent past. He found a way to co-ordinate the often conflicting data of history, ethnology, and culture. The Historical Method of Herodotus explores the intellectual habits and the literary principles of this pioneer writer of prose. Donald Lateiner argues, against the perception that Herodotus' work seems amorphous and ill organized, that the Histories contain their own definition of historical significance. He examines patterns of presentation and literary structure in...