Editor’s Preface

Summary

This volume is dedicated to the memory of Marjorie Chibnall, who died on 23 June 2012 at the age of ninety-six, and who was an ever-present at the Battle Conference from its first meeting in 1978 until, in recent years, ill-health prevented her attendance. Not only was Marjorie’s presence an inspiration to many of us; her countless acts of kindness and her firm insistence on the highest academic standards have been among the chief factors in making the Battle Conference so prestigious and successful. After Allen Brown’s death in 1989, it was Marjorie who took over the Conference, serving for five years as its Director, and, arguably even more importantly, being the main driving force behind the establishment of the Allen Brown Memorial Trust, which has given the Conference a secure financial operational basis. She set standards to which we must all aspire. She will be much missed.

The thirty-fifth Battle Conference was held from 26 to 31 July 2012 in Bayeux. Its sessions were held at the Conference centre at L’Espace Saint-Patrice, within a short walking distance of the museum that houses the Bayeux Tapestry and of the cathedral which, although much altered, is for ever associated in my mind with the ever controversial and fascinating Bishop Odo. That the Conference was so successful, both intellectually and socially, owes much to the warmth of the reception we received in Bayeux and to the kindness of many of its citizens. Specific thanks to the many people and organizations who contributed to this success will be set out below, but I must begin with a warm tribute to Mme Sylvette Lemagnen, Conservateur en chef de la Médiathèque municipale et de la Tapisserie de Bayeux, the person currently responsible for the great artefact that is so important to all of our work, and without whose assistance, along with that of the staff of the Tapestry Museum, the Conference would not have been possible.

It is especially fitting that the 2012 Memorial Lecture was given by Professor Véronique Gazeau, of the Université de Caen Basse-Normandie, not only because of her massive personal contribution to international collaboration between scholars in the field but also because of the debt to Marjorie Chibnall that she acknowledges in the introduction to her published lecture.