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In 2019 the British Library acquired the Percy Hours, a late thirteenth-century book of hours from York. This acquisition reunited the manuscript with the Percy Psalter, acquired by the Library in 1990. Together they originally formed a single volume psalter-hours. The Percy Psalter-Hours is one of a small number of devotional books for the laity surviving from thirteenth-century England, and probably the only example from York. It provides rare insight into a period of great change in book culture, when devotional books for the laity were growing in popularity and regional workshops for commercial book production were emerging around the country. Despite its significance, the question of the manuscript's original ownership has never been satisfactorily answered. Through analysing the heraldic evidence of the manuscript, this paper proposes a new identification of the intended owners and explores the wider implications for our understanding of the social history of the book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the relationship between the colour blue and the virtue of loyalty during the later Middle Ages. While it may not have been a colour with powerful symbolic resonances earlier in the medieval epoch, blue came to be regarded as increasingly prestigious as the period progressed. References to its association with loyalty and its concomitant virtues appear on the Continent and found their way to England. After briefly outlining the significance of blue in the medieval period, the paper examines this connection between colour and virtue in literature, heraldic treatises and works of art, arguing that it became generally accepted, although not all agreed on the association. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cultural history is currently rediscovering heraldry as a versatile means of communication that was widely employed throughout all parts of medieval society, not least the city. Scholars, however, primarily analyse the urban space as a stage for noble self-representation by means of heraldic communication. This paper argues for a different perspective, that townspeople and other commoners were far from primarily passive observers of heraldry displayed in the city. Four case studies from late medieval London demonstrate public expressions of discontent and protest through forms of heraldic communication which did not rely on display, but instead on the manipulation and destruction of the heraldic signs of kings, princes and other noblemen. Indeed, such heraldic practices of 'non-nobles' suggest that heraldry, in the later Middle Ages, was accessible to all parts of society, and constituted a ubiquitous and powerful aspect of urban visual culture. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article places the history of Swansea and the lordship of Gower within their broader aristocratic context in the thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries, namely the history of the Briouze family. The lordship of Gower was the most important possession of the senior branch of the Briouze dynasty, but the family's other important landed interests included the barony of Bramber (Sussex) and the manors of Tetbury (Gloucs.) and Buckingham. Within their far-flung interests the Briouze dynasty faced both internal and external pressures: these included the need to provide for younger sons and to reward followers, as well as the challenges from neighbours (both Welsh and English), dependants and the Crown. Their response to these pressures can be seen in a selection of charters issued by or for William V de Briouze (d. 1291) and his son William VI, the last Briouze lord of Gower, which are analysed here and published in an appendix. Together these provide a strong impression of the landed and political concerns of the Briouzes at the turn of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. The article concludes by considering the identity and family memory that these conditions nurtured within this leading Marcher family. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]