Many people have helped me to write this book, some by alerting me to references, some by reading sections, some in fruitful discussions. I hope I have remembered to thank them all at the appropriate point, and if not I apologize.
I have had the good fortune to spend my career in the Department of Medieval History at the University of St Andrews, surrounded by stimulating friends and colleagues, teaching able and interested students, in an environment which, for a medievalist, could hardly be bettered. I am grateful to them all. In 2013–14 I also spent a year working on this book at Fordham University in New York; thank you to Maryanne Kowaleski and her colleagues for making me so welcome there. I am very grateful to Nora Bartlett for her help in compiling the index. The many librarians and archivists who have helped me during the course of researching this book have also been unfailingly helpful; I would especially like to thank the staff of The National Archives at Kew, London, where the majority of the manuscript research for this book was done.
Whenever I go to London, I stay with my sister Rosalind in her house in Clapham, where she and her husband Paul invariably greet me with warmth, good food, good wine and good conversation. I have thought many times how much less pleasant my research would have been without their decades of generous hospitality.
This book is dedicated to Alice, Rachel, Hannah, Paul, Polo, Roxana, Neko, Luna and Cody, in the hope that they will always be safe and happy.
Chris Given-Wilson
St Andrews, March 2015