Resources for this growing project were provided in the form of a sabbatical from Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford, plus a generous research grant, a grant from the Faculty of Theology of the University of Oxford, and one from Education Services, an educational charity founded by the Cambridge Economist Jack Bellerby. For all this and for their confidence and friendship, I am very grateful.
Ranging over fifteen centuries and across a number of disciplines is a hazardous business, unless you are richly blessed in your colleagues, which I am. I want to offer them all my sincere thanks. Nothing can beat the college system for bringing you into direct contact with experts across the board. Colleagues have read earlier drafts of chapters: Simon Price, Kenneth Painter and Martin Henig were hugely generous with their time and advice about the Classical world, Mary Saunders about Classical languages, Henry Mayr-Harting on late Antiquity and Ottonian times, Hugh Wybrew was my guide to the Byzantine, Eric Fernie, John Blair and John Maddison scoured the Romanesque detail, and Gervase Rosser and Paul Binski the Gothic. Richard Pfaff, with his immense scholarship and familiarity with mediaeval manuscript material, has made invaluable interventions. Diarmaid MacCulloch, who is now working on a complete history of the Church (a feat few could or would dare to approach), Eric Fernie and Richard Pfaff have been kind enough to read the entire manuscript.
The general reader is also immensely important when dealing with a long narrative, and Peter Hainsworth and Jim Council have commented on the complete manuscript. Belinda Jack (my wife) has not only read the complete manuscript, she has throughout the project discussed almost every aspect with me, helping to shape, and absolutely essentially, to prune. She provided both the support and interest that was indispensable during the difficult times, and the hardest test of any when I had too easily made assumptions. With all this support (though naturally not always full agreement), there is no excuse for mistakes or infelicities that have crept in, inadvertently been allowed to remain (probably as a result of my limited computing skills), or that I have subsequently introduced; they are bound to be there somewhere, and they are entirely mine.
For making all this wonderful material available to me, my thanks go to Roberta Staples, Librarian of Lady Margaret Hall, and the librarians of St Catherine’s College and All Souls College, Oxford, the Libraries of the Theology and History Faculties, the Sackler, and the Bodleian Libraries of the University of Oxford. Further afield, thanks go to Dumbarton Oaks, the Institute of Art, New York, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Conway Library of the Courtauld Institute of Art, the Courtauld Institute of Art Gallery, the University of Virginia Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, J.J. Augustin, Professor L. Michael White, Wayne Boucher and Bill Storage for providing wonderful images, but the majority of illustrations have been most generously provided by Dr Allan T. Kohl of Art Images for College Teaching.
Dave Leal of Brasenose College, Oxford, as one of the general editors, kindly suggested to me that I write the volume for this series, and he, Sarah Lloyd, Barbara Pretty and Huw Jones, my editoral team at Ashgate, have been immensely helpful all along the way.
Finally, with the immortal phrase ‘So where’s the archaeology?’ ringing in my ears, I dedicate this book to Belinda and my sons John, Jamie and Nick, who have been willing me on (despite knowing there is bound to be more to come).
Allan Doig
Lady Margaret Hall, Oxford
Epiphany, 2007