In the preface to Women Readers in the Middle Ages I wrote that the present companion volume was under active preparation. I was able to say this because the research and collection of material for both volumes were conducted at the same time and with an eye to what I originally, and optimistically, thought might be their joint appearance. If I have been able to complete the present book so relatively soon after its predecessor this is also because, when one has advanced well into one's eighties, one is more than ever conscious of the pressure of time exerting its own urgency. The converse of this is that retirement gives one the freedom for uninterrupted research which our political masters, for all their talk of research assessment exercises, are loath to grant to academics, especially in the humanities, before they retire.

As previously, I owe a number of debts of gratitude. Foremost amongst these I thank Mark Chinca and Nigel Palmer for reading through the chapters of this book in their first shape and for giving me their detailed comments, most of which I have accepted. I have made considerable demands on the patience and readiness to help of members of the Cambridge University Library, which they have uniformly met with courtesy and efficiency. It is also a pleasure to thank once more Laura Pieters Cordy, and assisting her Hansa Chauhan, for transposing my handwriting into a print-ready text and for the helpful suggestions on style and wording which this elicited.