In this ground-breaking study Malcolm Vale restores the thirteenth and fourteenth century courts to their rightful place in the cultural history of western Europe. By examining both surviving works of art and the evidence of household and other accounts he illuminates the richness and abundance of artistic, literary, and musical life at the courts of this period. He argues that it was this common court culture which produced the splendours of the Burgundian court. - ;In this fascinating new book, Malcolm Vale sets out to recapture the splendour of the court culture of western Europe in the thi