I must first of all put on record my pleasure at being appointed Director of the Battle Conference. Although I have not been anything like ever-present at the annual conferences held since I first attended the Battle Conference in 1981, I have remained a consistent supporter in spirit and have been delighted to act as a trustee of the Allen Brown Memorial Trust that supports the conference. I often reflect on how important the friendships and contacts I have made through meetings at Battle have been for my professional life, a point that I made publicly when I gave the Memorial Lecture in Glasgow in 2002. I regard it as an honour to have been asked to take on the responsibilities of Director of the Conference and Editor of Anglo-Norman Studies. Secondly, I must express a warm tribute to the efforts of my predecessor as Director, Chris Lewis, who has sustained both the traditions and the quality of what can surely now be referred to as a great institution. He was also responsible for initiating processes that have seen the conference develop through a period of unpredictable challenges, of which the greatest has undoubtedly been the unavailability of the traditional venue in Battle at Pyke House.

As a result of Pyke House's unavailability, the 2011 conference was held in the magnificent surroundings of the University of York's King's Manor, at a distance from the west front of the minster approximately the same as Pyke House's from the former High Altar of Battle abbey.