The 36th Battle Conference was held from 26 to 30 July 2013 in Cambridge. All the conference sessions took place at Lucy Cavendish College, which also provided accommodation for residential delegates and meals for all who attended. The Allen Brown Memorial Lecture was held in the Seeley Library of the History Faculty of the University of Cambridge. Both the History Faculty and Lucy Cavendish College were outstandingly generous hosts to the continuingly itinerant Battle conference. Dr Mark Goldie, the Chair of the Faculty, hosted a reception after the Memorial Lecture, made financial provision that provided administrative support for the Conference Director and supported the award of an exceptional number of bursaries for postgraduate students. At Lucy Cavendish, the Domestic Bursar, Christine Houghton, played a central role in the overall organization of the conference and was consistently helpful and encouraging. Her assistant, Gemma Beevers, both provided stalwart support throughout the whole process of setting up the conference and oversaw registrations in a most efficient manner. The expenses of some of the overseas speakers at the Conference were supported from the History Faculty’s Trevelyan Fund. The Director must also thank Susan Raich for her exemplary administrative support both before and during the Conference.

The Allen Brown Memorial Lecture, given by Elisabeth van Houts, also provided her with the opportunity to pay tribute to the late Marjorie Chibnall, who, with the conference being held in Marjorie’s academic home in Cambridge, was often in the thoughts of the many delegates who had known her. As always, the conference was treated to a range of papers that covered many areas of interest. With speakers either coming or originating from France, Germany, Russia, Scandinavia, and the United States, the scale of international participation was truly exceptional. A notable proportion of the speakers were also at a relatively early stage in their careers, a heartening feature that bodes well for the future of the field to which the conference is devoted. It was possible this time to award bursaries to five postgraduate students: Jennie England, Amélie Rigollet, John Stevenson, Katherine Weikert, and Emily Winkler.

With the conference as always having no specific theme, any attempt to discern one within the array of exciting papers published here is a largely artificial exercise on behalf of the volume’s editor.