This interdisciplinary volume arises from a lively and stimulating two-day conference held at Christ's College, Cambridge, in January 2020. It is an event upon which the editors have come to look nostalgically, as the last in-person symposium they attended prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The editors acknowledge Christ's College and the Faculty of History's Trevelyan Fund which provided financial support for the conference. We wish to thank all those who participated and contributed papers on this occasion, including Kat Hill, Kristine Johanson, David van der Linden, Harriet Phillips, and Judith Pollmann. The current collection has been augmented with essays by Raingard Esser, Niccolò Fattori, Alisa van de Haar and Theo Lap, and Antonio Urquízar-Herrera and Enrique Soria Mesa, which have extended its geographical and thematic range and added new interdisciplinary dimen¬sions to its analysis. We are very grateful to our contributors for responding thoughtfully and efficiently to comments on earlier drafts.

Our publisher, Boydell and Brewer, has been supportive of this project from the outset and we thank Michael Middeke and Elizabeth Howard for their patience in the final stages of preparing the volume for the press.

Locally, Tabitha, magnificent tabby of West Wratting, and Finch and Baines, the new Christ's College kittens, have provided welcome distraction and occasional ‘help’. Any remaining errors should be imputed to these creatures.