It is a privilege to introduce this first volume in the new Royal Armouries Research Series. As the UK's national museum of arms and armour, the Royal Armouries is heir to one of the oldest visitor attractions in the country. With our roots in the Middle Ages and our original home at the Tower of London, we are ideally placed to bring this unique perspective to a wider research community.

The Medieval Tournament as Spectacle marks the beginning of a new venture for the museum. We are very pleased to work in partnership with Boydell & Brewer to bring together curators, conservators and academics to develop a greater understanding of arms and armour. Given the different traditions that underpin these areas, an emphasis on cross-functional research is particularly important. Too often, museums and universities travel on parallel tracks without realising how close their interests lie. Yet as curators seek to interpret their work for the public and academics pursue broader impact, the need for closer collaboration has never been more evident. As this volume makes clear, research on arms and armour is far wider than an isolated knowledge of particular objects: instead, these objects act as keys to unlock the stories of the people who inhabited worlds teeming with noise and colour.

I am extremely grateful to the team in Woodbridge for their efforts to bring this first volume into the light: Caroline Palmer, Michael Richards, Elizabeth McDonald and Sean Andersson are but four of a team whose unbounded patience has been greatly appreciated.