In this kind of study one is tied hand and foot without the help and guidance of the local people. My first and greatest debt is to the Valencians themselves, than whom no people could have been warmer, more open or more welcoming. In more senses than one this is their book. Sebastián García Martínez has been a much-needed friend over the years in which this study was in preparation. The late Joan Reglà, Peregrín Lloréns, Luis Cerveró and Thomas Glick helped open many doors for me, which would surely have stayed closed without their generous assistance. Jordi Nadal, Emili Giralt, Joan Fuster, Alvaro Castillo and José María López Piñero gave much time to discussing and focusing my early ideas on Valencian history. And more recently Dámaso de Lario, Pau Ferrer and Ricardo García Cárcel have done their best to keep me up to the mark in this respect. My debt to all those hard-working and hospitable archivists whom it has been my good fortune to come across in Valencia, Barcelona, Madrid and Seville is an outstanding one. Though it is invidious to single out names, I feel I should record the exceptional facilities for research which were given to me by José Sánchez Adell of Castellón, Joaquín González Moreno of Seville, Emilio Marín of Pedralba, Francisco Tormo of Orihuela and Rosa Rodríguez and her staff of Valencia.