I wish to thank Martha Carlin, who over a casual lunch at the British Library directed me to an enlightening source on fourteenth-century travel from Dover of which I was unaware. I also wish to express my gratitude to Margaret McGlynn, Shannon McSheffrey, and Karl Shoemaker for making some of their unpublished work on sanctuary available to me. When I was unsure what secondary source to trust on the level of destruction inflicted on manuscript collections in the Pas-de-Calais during the Second World War, I consulted Dr. (and Col.) Paul Miles, whom I wish gratefully to acknowledge. Several of my graduate students, in particular Hagar Barak and Jenna Phillips, listened patiently and graciously to the anecdotes I retold from the felony cases I was reading. Moreover, I shared portions of the manuscript with them at various times for feedback and have shamelessly plagiarized their suggested rephrasings as a testimony of my debt to them. I need also to express my thanks to the members of the Department of History and other friends and colleagues at Princeton who attended my Work-in-Progress report on this project (sponsored by the Shelby Cullom Davis Center) and to the hosts, Professors Scott Bruce and Anne Lester, and audience for a similar presentation, the inaugural James Field Willard Lecture in Medieval History at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
After I had completed a working draft of the book and submitted the manuscript to Princeton University Press, I had the good fortune that my editor, Brigitta van Rheinberg, chose Professor Nicholas Vincent of the University of East Anglia as a referee. His was one of the most thorough and helpful readings any author could possibly receive. My gratitude is immeasurable. My gratitude to my copyeditor and indexer, Katherine Harper, must also be publicly avowed. Last but by no means least I want to mention once again Brigitta van Rheinberg. Her official title at Princeton University Press is Assistant Director and Editor in Chief. It was to her that I first described this project and kept describing it at different stages over a number of lunches. She always seemed fascinated by it, an impression that was very reassuring. One of the earlier of these lunches, however, was memorable for a wholly different reason. It was accompanied by what turned out to be a ghastly Creamsicle martini, which I ordered, recollecting how much I had delighted in Creamsicles as a child. Brigitta was doubtful from the first, and rightly so. For those who want to give it a try, however—and I have in mind principally two Princeton colleagues, Professors Haldon and Reimitz—a recipe can be found (at least at the time of this writing) at http://cocktails.about.com/od/vodkadrinkrecipes/r/creamsicle.htm. My version was prepared not with vodka but with the distilled spirits of the juniper berry and served in a traditional martini glass, not the Collins glass recommended on the website. I hasten to say that I disclaim all liability for consumption.