This volume, based on Kathleen Scott's 2004 Lyell lectures at Oxford, examines a number of English manuscripts of the r yth and early reth centuries never previously studied and all of which make a unique contribution to art history in this period. Dr Scott's researches establish criteria for genuine artistic originality in manuscript books and fully contextualize her analyses. Each manuscript is assessed in detail in terms of its text, scribe(s), artists, decorative programme and circumstances of creation and is also set in the wider contexts of contemporary English manuscript art history by extensive reference to related manuscripts both contemporary and earlier, in England and on the Continent. This ground-breaking study, by a leading historian of English art of the 15th century, offers an original investigation of motives for including pictures in manuscripts, of the role of the author in illustration, and of the traditional and innovative nature of visual representation in medieval manuscripts. Included are more than 100 colour plates.