John XXII, elected as the second of the Avignon popes on 7 August 1316 at the age of seventy-two, built extensively in the territories around that city as well as initiating works in Avignon itself. In 1318 he began the construction of a palace on the edge of the small town of Sorgues, situated some nine kilometres north of Avignon at a point on the line of the old Roman road to Orange where there was a bridge across the river Ouvèze, a major tributary of the Rhône. This paper considers the evidence for the palace, including the surviving remains of the structure which are published here for the first time, and for certain contemporary buildings in Sorgues, in particular the house at 27 Rue de la Tour in which a series of late fourteenth-century frescoes was uncovered in 1936. These researches began with an architectural study of this ‘Maison des Fresques’, but it soon became clear that such investigations raised wider questions involving the interpretation of documentary and archaeological evidence relevant both to the palace and to the medieval topography of the town.

The 1350 foundation statutes for the College of Trinity Hall, Cambridge, contain unique provisions for a corporate signum or badge. The badge was specifically assigned to the college by its founder, William Bateman, Bishop of Norwich (1289–1355). Over time Bateman's personal arms replaced this signum in identifying the college and its property. The badge is often called Bateman's personal badge, but this is not supported by the statutes of the college or by the evidence of the badge's use in surviving books in the college library. The instructions for the college signum and its specific function in the marking of the college's books represents an interesting development in the indication of corporate, rather than personal, ownership using heraldic insignia. This paper discusses Bateman's instructions for the college signum and the evolution of the Trinity Hall arms.

A figurine unique for Roman Britain is described and analysed, showing that its attributes conflate those of several classical deities, all of whom might have been associated in the mind of the donor with the Romano-Celtic goddess, Senuna.

The Roman city of Melite, on the central Mediterranean archipelago of Malta, had, in common with other provincial outposts of the Empire, a diaspora Jewish colony for which there is testimony in six hypogea that prominently display the seven-branched Menorah. There is apparent evidence for a religious, and perhaps administrative, set-up in a Greek inscription that marks the burial place of a gerousiarch and lover of the ‘commandments’ who could have been the head of a Council of Elders in the synagogue of the city, and of his wife, Eulogia ‘the Elder’. The title presbytera used in the text has a special significance and suggests that husband and wife held prestigious posts in the running of the colony. A second inscription incorporates the seven-branched Menorah and commemorates another woman, named Dionisia, who was known by the ritualistic name ‘Irene’. Two other texts appear to be simple farewell messages but are of interest because they are accompanied by a stylized painted Menorah and a boldly incised sailing vessel that has the appearance of a Roman ship. The paper takes a close look at these and other archaeological material related to Jewish presence and influence in Malta. The hypogea are discussed in the context of the Maltese culture of rock-cut burials, starting in the prehistoric period and finding special significance as the prototype influence on the Romano-Punic tomb.

The mortuary roll of John Islip (1464–1532), Abbot of Westminster, is the finest example of its kind to survive in England. The drawings, possibly by Gerard Horenbout, afford the only views of the interior of Westminster Abbey before the Dissolution. The discovery of eighteenth-century copies of an unknown, coloured version of the roll provides important new evidence for both the circumstances of the production and the later history of both rolls. It also provides, for the first time, an authentic colour view of the interior of Westminster Abbey in the late medieval period, and new information on its decoration.

On 14th April 1426 a large manuscript illustrating the life and miracles of St. Anthony the Abbot in two hundred pictures was completed for the abbey of Saint-Antoine de Viennois in Dauphiné, the head house of the Order of Hospitallers of St. Anthony. The Order was suppressed in 1775, when it was absorbed into the Order of Knights Hospitallers of St. John of Jerusalem, and in 1781 this manuscript was sent to the head house in Malta; it is now in the public library at Valletta and was brought to light in 1907 by the present learned librarian Mr. Hannibal P. Scicluna. I owe my knowledge of the existence of this manuscript to Mr. S. C. Cockerell who saw it at Valletta for the first time in 1926, and it was on his initiative that it was sent to the British Museum on loan, with permission to exhibit it at a meeting of this Society. We are greatly indebted to Mr. Cockerell, Sir John Shuckburgh of the Colonial Office, to the Governor-General of Malta, the Minister of Public Instruction, and above all to Dr. Scicluna on whose recommendation the loan was made for study and photography. The whole manuscript will be reproduced for the Roxburghe Club, and the privilege of editing it has been given to me.

The ruins of Kindrochit Castle stand in the heart of the much-frequented village of Braemar, near the head of the river Dee, amid the wild mountains of western Aberdeenshire. The castle occupies a very strong position on the east brink of a rocky gorge formed by the Clunie Water, and on the other side was defended by an ancient mill-lade, taken off the Clunie above the castle, and rejoining it below, so as to complete the insulation of the site. In the name of the castle (Kindrochit = ‘bridge-head’) is enshrined its early importance as a fortified post guarding the passage of the great north road across the Clunie Water. The map (fig. 1) clearly indicates how the significance of the castle is to be found not in the east-and-west or blind-alley strategy of the Dee valley, but rather in the north and south or transversal strategy of the ancient trunk roads converging northwards across the ‘Mounth’ or mountain barrier between Strathmore and Mar.