Decorated Revisited: English Architectural Style in Context, 1250-1400

Thirty-Five years after the publication of Jean Bony’s seminal work on the so-called Decorated style of English architecture (‘The English Decorated Style: Gothic Architecture Transformed’, 1979), this volume brings together a selection of groundbreaking essays by the most promising emerging scholars of English medieval architecture, together with contributions by two of the leading established authorities on the subject: Nicola Coldstream (‘The Decorated Style: Architecture and Ornament, 1240-1360’, 1994) and Paul Binski (‘Gothic Wonder: Art, Artifice, and the Decorated Style, 1290-1350’, 2014). The contributors revisit Bony’s work and reassess the scholarly legacy of the past three-and-a-half decades. Drawing on a range of innovative methodologies, they then present exciting new insights into the nature and significance of English architecture in the period, focusing particularly on its broader European context. The essays are developed from papers delivered as part of a major seminar series at the University of Cambridge in 2013-14.