This useful and handsome book grew out of a three-day conference held at the Victoria and Albert Museum in 2003 to coincide with the major exhibition Gothic: Art for England, 1400–1547. Edited by Gothic's curator Richard Marks, it contains thirteen essays on topics related to the intellectual and scholarly aims of the exhibition. This means that the dominant tone is as much historical as art-historical in the traditional sense: patronage and function are major themes, while style and iconography receive less attention. Five years on, with the conference-exhibition link remembered by relatively few, the book suffers by comparison with the magisterial catalogue it complements. While the latter gives a broad, contextualised overview of art and architecture which will remain a standard scholarly resource for years to come, the conference volume inevitably appears miscellaneous in content when considered on its own. There are contributions, among other things, on aesthetic language in Lydgate's poetry, the silk ankle boots and stockings of William Waynflete, the iron railings surrounding the tomb of Lady Margaret Beaufort at Westminster, the medieval furnishings of a small parish church, and the attitude of reformers to the iconography of St George. At the end of the volume stand two essays on the constitution and organisation of exhibitions of medieval art, both enterprising and appropriate inclusions which make significant contributions to a domain crying out for sympathetic, informed academic attention. These are by Alexandrina Buchanan, who successfully establishes the cultural independence of temporary medieval exhibitions within the broader museum and gallery context, and Paul Crossley, who reviews the three major shows of medieval art held between 1984 and 2003: English Romanesque Art, 1066–1200 (Hayward Gallery, 1984), Age of Chivalry: Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400 (Royal Academy, 1987), and Gothic: Art for England. Both essays range more widely than the other contributions, and Crossley's is the most entertaining and edifying in the volume, informed as it is by lived experience and a particular sensitivity to the importance of academic historiography. It is clear that Crossley considers Age of Chivalry the best of the exhibitions; but equally apparent is his understanding of the disciplinary developments which resulted in what might be called the small a ‘art’, large H ‘History’ style of Gothic. Apart from these two historiographical essays, it is important to mention Kim Woods's piece on the remarkable recumbent sculpture of Christ from the Mercers' chapel in London. The sculpture has been inadequately studied to date, and the essay is a welcome addition to the available literature. It is perhaps more cautious than it need be. Could this really be a sixteenth-century piece? The obvious comparator in terms of general appearance, manner and (more broadly perhaps) style is the bust of Christ by Claus Sluter from the lavatorium at the charterhouse of Champmol, carved between 1395 and 1406. In any case, the Mercers' Christ, no doubt at more than one remove, appears to reflect the influence of this renowned work. Susan Foister's excellent essay on the altarpiece painted by Antonio da Solario for the English merchant Paul Withypool is another which engages with the continental aspects of English art and its commerce at the end of the Middle Ages. This was an important theme of the exhibition, and it is useful to be reminded of it here.