This is the first ever book to unite and translate some of the key texts which informed Johan Huizinga's famous study of the Burgundian court in "The Waning of the Middle Ages", a work which has never gone out of print, and is taught on many History courses throughout Europe and the USA. It offers an up-to-date discussion of recent historiography and new perspectives on the subject. It challenges the conventional divide between 'medieval' and 'Renaissance' or 'early modern' periods. It appeals not just to students of the late medieval and early modern Europe but also to readers with wider interests in court culture, ritual and ceremony.