An account of the political and military events leading to the destruction of the evacuated documents of the Naples State Archives by German soldiers in September 1943. The nature of the lost material, especially the registers of the Angevin dynasty, and subsequent attempts to recreate what can be known of this material.

An analysis of the events that led to the Irish Civil War of 1922−3 and the destruction of the Public Record Office of Ireland in the opening days of the fighting. A description of what was lost and the background to the formation of the Public Record Office. The efforts of scholars since 1922 to recreate whatever can be recreated of the record.

An account of the German bombardmentof Strasbourg in 1870 and the destruction of its medieval manuscript collections, focusing on Herrad of Landsberg’s Hortus deliciarum, an enormous illustrated encyclopedia made for the nuns of Herrad’s convent. Analysis of the contents and pictures of the work and the efforts made to record it before the destruction.

A detailed analysis of the medieval material in the Municipal Library at Chartres destroyed in the US air raid of 1944. This serves as an introduction to many aspects of the intellectual life of the Middle Ages. Discussion of work on the intellectual world of Chartres and of the birth of American Romantic medievalism.

This chapter explores the fascination that the biblical apocrypha held for Montague Rhodes James (1862-1936) and explains his relationship to contemporary Cambridge scholarship that pioneered the study of those texts in the context of New Testament scholarship. It places MRJ’s work on the biblical apocrypha within his wider fascination for ‘old stories’, and considers the similarities between his scholarly work on Greek apocrypha and pseudepigrapha and his activities as a medievalist and codicologist, with particular reference both to manuscript studies and to his interpretation of the sculpture in the Lady Chapel at Ely Cathedral.

This chapter addresses how the Crusades spurred a renewed appropriation of Alexander in historiography, literature, images and cartography in late medieval Europe. Alexander’s legend was particularly relevant because it reflected the era’s geopolitical and epistemological complexity. The chapter focuses first on the ancient Alexander legend’s adaptation in Crusade-era texts including Crusade chronicles, epics, antique romances and encyclopedias. These works compare Alexander to Crusaders, present Alexander as a precursor of the Crusaders who fights Asian tyranny, interpolate Alexander into the stories of Crusaders through ekphrasis, and frequently cite the legend of Alexander’s enclosure of Gog and Magog. The chapter’s second part focuses on how manuscripts present Alexander as a proto-Crusader even if texts do not overtly describe him as such. Particular attention is paid to compilations that join Alexander and holy warriors (Judas Maccabeus, Godfrey of Bouillon), and to images that Christianise Alexander or demonise his foes. The final section examines the influence of Alexander’s legend on the apocalyptic geography of late medieval maps, which often depict Gog and Magog and other elements (toponyms, sites, monstrous peoples) of the Alexander tradition.