Within three generations (1426 to 1485), and through the dark and dangerous years of the Wars of the Roses, the Pastons established themselves as a family of consequence, both in their native Norfolk and within court circles. Ambitious and highly mobile - womenfolk as well as men - they kept in touch by correspondence, usually but not invariably through the medium of a clerk.<BR>Richard Barber uses his wide-ranging knowledge of the medieval world to set the correspondence in context and follow the fortunes of the family. The letters vividly convey the urgency, and sometimes the violence, of the family's preoccupations: defending property, fighting court cases, making the right alliances, and, on the domestic side, managing their estates, conducting their courtships, stocking their cupboards. Selected and presented here with a linking narrative, they bring the middle ages triumphantly to life.