The papers in this volume were read at the symposium held at Harlaxton Manor in 2004 in honour of Professor Caroline M. Barron. The conference theme of 'London and the Kingdom' borrows its title from that of the classic work of 1894-5 by R. R. Sharpe, and it closely reflects Caroline Barron's wide-ranging and important contributions to the study of medieval London, and to medieval history generally. The papers develop this in a number of ways, in studies of literary and visual sources for the history of London, from chronicles to seals, to funerary monuments. Other contributors focus on merchants, women, children and apprentices in medieval London, using a wide range of newly mined sources to illuminate their lives and experiences. London's economic role is brought out in several papers, which examine themes such as the links between the city and Westminster Abbey, incidents of smuggling through the port of London, and the supplying of materials and goods to the royal court in the sixteenth century. Others look at the changing religious climate before and after the Reformation, including the fortunes of communities of nuns displaced by the Dissolution of the Monasteries.
