Nigel Saul's collection of articles, centered on the building of St George's Chapel and its meaning in the context of the fourteenth century, springs from a conference held at Windsor Castle in 2002. Dedicated to the history of the college, participants produced papers on a diversity of themes: from Edward III's Arthurian pretensions to the role of the Order of the Garter in strengthening the position of the royal family and finally to the architectural innovations of St George's and its impact on late medieval English architecture. With such a cohesive and yet wide-ranging focus, this Festschrift presents a comprehensive history of a well-known and well-loved English institution.

Two chapters stand out from the rest. First, Clive Burgess's chapter, entitled simply “St George's College, Windsor: Context and Consequence,” is a marvelous venture into the religio-political ambitions behind the founding of the college. Burgess sees the growing English nationalism as being integrally rooted in the notion of the English as God's special tribe. The proliferation of English religious architecture and liturgy in this period is in direct competition with that of the French, who seemed to have boasted a similar egocentric vision. Edward III's establishment of the collegiate institution at St George's began a building campaign of secular colleges by royal and noble patrons with a dual function. Not only were these colleges valuable as chantries dedicated to prayers for the families of the patron, but patrons seem to have recognized the benefits nationally of an ostentatious celebration of the liturgy to unite the peerage, to declare the political nation's spiritual responsibilities, and to demonstrate England's place as the dower of the Virgin Mary. Burgess's article is witty and skillfully written. Furthermore, it is an indispensable contribution to the field of Reformation studies. Burgess demonstrates persuasively the importance of the cenobitic life, in particular to the nobility of England, at a time when many scholars have argued the eremitic influence was more central.

Another highlight includes A. K. B. Evans's “Litigation for Proprietary Rights: The Case of the Obstinate Vicar.” Evans begins her story with an (apparently untrustworthy) letter of complaint from the parishioners of Saltash to the Dean and College of Windsor regarding their vicar, bandying about the usual complaints of the era: revealing parishioners’ confessions, drunkenness, selling the sacraments, and a failure to expound the gospels. Intrigued initially by a passage in this letter indicating that parishioners had previously supported the vicar in a struggle against the Dean and College, Evans has managed to uncover the delightful tale of an “obstinate vicar” determined to keep his lucrative position and an established church equally desperate to root him from the vicarage in any legal way possible. Evans's account is reminiscent of the story of David and Goliath: while the vicar does eventually step down, he secures an annual pension equivalent to his yearly salary and continues to reside in Saltash, a “perpetual thorn in the side of his successor as vicar” (133). As Evans notes, “there is something heartening in this story of an individual fighting an institution of wealth and influence and winning his battle” (134). Evans's chapter highlights both the disunity of the late medieval church as an institution, as well as the flexibility and intertwined nature of England's assorted legal systems in which a litigant might appeal to Chancery, the Court of Hustings, Common Pleas, and the papal court in an effort to resolve a dispute.

Not all articles in this collection are as enjoyable or noteworthy. Those chapters dedicated to the history of the fine arts are the most uneven in quality. Although John Goodall's “The Aerary Porch and Its Influence on Late Medieval English Vaulting” is capable of drawing the reader into a riveting discussion of the dissemination of the Perpendicular style in England, others, such as those chapters by Pamela Tudor-Craig and Helen Marsh Jeffries, draw few conclusions and make little effort to hold the reader's attention.

The only glaring omission in the book is the lack of a glossary. St George's Chapel Windsor is a collection of highly specific works drawn from a variety of historical disciplines, from religious to legal to architectural history. Each of these fields (the last in particular) employ specialized terminology that is necessary to grasp in order to understand the particulars of the argument. It is hard to imagine that the average professoriate reader will be familiar enough with all three fields and their associated jargon to appreciate the full value of the collection. To this, it should be added that none of these chapters was directed to a general audience. The failure to offer translations of passages appearing in Latin or Norman French, as well as countless references to scholarly debates to which many outside the discipline might be unfamiliar, ensures that the audience for this book will be limited. Nonetheless, St George's Chapel Windsor in the Fourteenth Century is a solid work of scholarship, providing a new understanding of the role of Edward III and his building campaign in the growth of England as a nation toward the end of the medieval period.