This was a comparative and cross-chronological study focusing on some relatively neglected areas of court culture and politics. European courts, whether royal, princely or aristocratic, were nodal points of political power, ceremony, ritual and sociability. They were also major sources of artistic patronage and commissions, and of the transmission of ideas and influences. Much recent work in this area had been based on national examples, and one of the aims of this project was to identify both the common and distinctive features of the court cultures of north-west Europe. Moreover, previous studies had concentrated mainly on the cultivation of princely magnificence at a general level or on the delivery of certain specific propaganda messages. The role of other patrons at the courts had, with some exceptions, been neglected, and little attempt had been made to assess the role of cultural patronage in the political system as a whole. Works of art, music and literature not only proclaimed the patron's status, but may also communicated his or her relationship to prince and polity; and, when given as gifts, demonstrated links of service, supplication or reward towards other courtiers or those outside the court. Gift-giving, particularly of such items as jewellery, goldsmiths' work, manuscripts and textiles, is therefore a thematic focus of the research.

The project was funded by a three-year award from the Leverhulme Trust, building upon a pre-existing collaboration between the Oxford faculties of Modern History and English, and the Netherlands Research School for Medieval Studies. A series of exchange workshops were held at Oxford, Leiden and Groningen involving leading scholars in the field of Late Medieval and Early Modern culture and politics. The project directors were Professor Rees Davies, Dr Steven Gunn and Dr Malcolm Vale. A collection of essays based on papers given at the workshops has been published as The Court as a Stage: England and the Low Countries in the Later Middle Ages, ed. Steven Gunn and Antheun Janse (Woodbridge: Boydell and Brewer, 2006) . The Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Dr Andy Boyle, is writing a monograph comparing two sets of courts over a long time-span, for which the material is particularly rich: the courts of Henry IV of England (1399-1413) and John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy (1405-19); and Henry VIII of England (1509-47) and Margaret of Austria, duchess of Savoy and regent of the Netherlands (1506-30). The research was based on archival material concentrated in repositories in London, Lille, Dijon, Brussels, and other archives and libraries in Britain, Belgium and the Netherlands. The work raised such issues as: the role of courtly magnificence in securing the position of new dynasties; the status of regents' courts as opposed to those of sovereigns; the relationship between political centralization and the cultural standing of the court; the role of cultural exchange in relationships between courtly, bureaucratic, noble and urban elites; and the impact of the Italian renaissance on the patronage and production of northern European art, architecture, crafts and music

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