Editor’s Preface

Summary

In its twenty-fifth year the Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies made its now customary quinquennial excursion, on this occasion to Glasgow from 25 to 30 July 2002, at the invitation of Professor David Bates. All the papers printed in this volume were delivered there, either in Glasgow University’s Kelvin Conference Centre or in the neo-Gothic splendours of its main building. For generous help in meeting the costs incurred in organising and holding the conference we are grateful to both the British Academy and the University of Glasgow.

Members of the conference enjoyed a day and a half of visits, an afternoon at Bothwell Castle (where we were guided by Dr Alan Rutherford) and to Glasgow Cathedral (guided by Dr Richard Fawcett), and then a full day’s outing to the Border abbeys. Richard Fawcett gave the paper on the Border abbeys printed here, guided us round Kelso, Jedburgh, Melrose and Dryburgh abbeys and enlivened the whole journey with his knowledge of Scottish buildings of all periods. We also visited a splendid exhibition of manuscripts kindly arranged just for us by Julie Gardham of the Special Collections, Glasgow University Library. Our thanks to them all.

Organising the Battle Conference in those years when it does not meet in Battle is inevitably more complicated than usual. Behind the scenes and for well over a year ahead, Pam Nye, the secretary of Glasgow University’s Medieval History Department, worked administrative wonders to ensure that everything went smoothly. David Bates’s own contribution to the success of the conference was huge, both before the conference and during it, both behind the scenes and on stage. It will not often happen that the R. Allen Brown Memorial Lecturer also chooses to sit at the reception desk, welcoming and registering all new arrivals. For their assistance with the mechanics of this, as well as for ferrying people to and from the airport, we are grateful to three of the department’s postgraduate students: Maxime Guilmin, Neil Strevett and Vanessa Traill.

The year away from Battle provided a break with the Battle tradition of sunny weather, so we were fortunate that our accommodation was in Wolfson Hall, immediately adjoining the Kelvin Conference Centre.