This volume had its origins in a conference held at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, in September 2004. While several other meetings in that year commemorated the 800th anniversary of the end of the Anglo-Norman realm, it seemed appropriate to celebrate also the 850th anniversary of the accession to the English throne of a king who, whatever view is taken of him, was undoubtedly significant in the history both of France and of England. It was to the immense delight of Christopher Harper-Bill that, between conception and realisation of the conference, Nicholas Vincent, who had been invited as a speaker, was appointed to a third chair of medieval history at Norwich. Professor Marie Therese Flanagan was unfortunately prevented by illness from presenting a paper, and we are particularly grateful to Dr Seán Duffy for providing, at short notice, an essay for the volume. Dr Jane Martindale was similarly prevented by ill health from preparing for publication her paper on ‘From the Loire to the Pyrenees’, given at the conference.

For much assistance in organisation we are indebted to Rowena Burgess, research administrator of the School of History. The conviviality of the proceedings was facilitated by the cheerful efforts of the catering staff. We are grateful to Professor Sandy Heslop and Professor Carole Rawcliffe for leading excursions to, respectively, the cathedral and the Great Hospital. For his enthusiastic support of the conference, this volume and indeed of all things medieval, we wholeheartedly thank Professor John Charmley, a truly beneficent head of School.

The Centre of East Anglian Studies at the University of East Anglia is grounded on three principles. First, that although the Centre is now a constituent part of the School of History, it should be committed to an interdisciplinary approach to the region's past, with due attention being paid to archaeology, art history and literary studies. Secondly, regional and local history should not descend into parochial antiquarianism, but rather should be set in the widest context of England and western Europe. This is particularly important for the medieval period, when East Anglia was one of the most prosperous regions of Latin Christendom. Thirdly, there should be vigorous interaction between the staff and students of the Centre and that wider community of archaeologists and historians, amateurs in the best sense of that word, who have over many years done so much to enhance our knowledge and understanding.

The papers printed in this volume represent the bulk of the proceedings of a conference held at CEAS from 8 to 12 September 2003. The majority of the lectures were given by members of UEA, but we are particularly indebted to those scholars from other universities, in Australia and the USA as well as Britain, who responded to our invitation to speak. Among these were Dr Benjamin Thompson and Dr Mark Bailey, whose valuable contributions were not available for publication, although Dr Bailey's paper will constitute the core of a chapter in his forthcoming book on the social and economic history of late medieval Suffolk. Many valuable comments and questions came from an enthusiastic audience which included many associate members of CEAS. Several of our distinguished visitors commented on the value of such a meeting which bridged the artificial gulf between university departments and the flourishing historical communities of the two counties.

I am grateful to the Dean of the School of History, Professor John Charmley, both for his enthusiastic support for the conference and for authorising the subvention of publication costs from Miss Ann Ashard Webb's Bequest. I received much cheerful support, moral and practical, from the secretary of CEAS, Mrs Jenni Tanimoto. I would also like to thank Dr Lucy Marten for preparing the index. As so often, I am grateful to the publishers, and particularly to Caroline Palmer, for undertaking publication and efficiently executing the task.

THE PUBLICATION of this volume of essays presents an opportunity for a brief and necessarily selective survey of the progress of East Anglian medieval studies over the last quarter century, and to suggest avenues of profitable research for the future. The chronological limits of this conspectus are largely limited by the editor's own knowledge to the long period from the Conquest to the eve of the Reformation, and with a few notable exceptions, it deals only with books and excludes the voluminous, and often very valuable, periodical literature, much of it published in Norfolk Archaeology and Proceedings of the Suffolk Institute of Archaeology and History.

Crucial to the advance of historical knowledge is the publication of primary sources, in editions which combine the highest standards of scholarship with accessibility, which can be achieved by the provision of detailed abstracts of documents in Latin. For the twelfth and thirteenth centuries the most important source for almost every aspect of society is the huge corpus of charters, for the most part title deeds, but revealing far more than merely the transfer of properties. The pioneer in this field in East Anglia was Barbara Dodwell, who in 1985 published the second of two volumes of Norwich Cathedral Charters for the Pipe Roll Society (ns 40, 46). For Norfolk little has been done since, although an edition of the cartulary of Castle Acre priory is in progress. For Suffolk much has been accomplished in the last quarter century in the Suffolk Charters series of the Suffolk Record Society, established by the late Professor R. Allen Brown. Since 1979 the charters of ten religious houses and one lay estate have been published in seventeen volumes. Here the mountain of the Bury St Edmunds cartularies remains to be scaled (although all the twelfth-century charters are in print in various places). For Norfolk one of the most urgent tasks is the edition of the numerous cartularies and collections of original charters, which have been remarkably little exploited since the work of Blomefield.

The charters of the bishops of Norwich, a crucial source for the organisation of the church and religion, are in the course of publication as part of a series which has transformed our knowledge of the church in England in the two centuries after the Conquest.