This chapter opens the volume’s third thematic strand (Individuals and Institutions) with an investigation into family and kinship in the age of William the Conqueror. It starts with France and the Capetian dynasty, before shifting its focus to England and the Scandinavian kingdoms of Denmark and Norway. Particular attention is paid to the period after the death of Cnut, the extended kin of Edith and Edward, and the various changes and continuities between notions of kinship in the pre-Conquest period and those in Anglo-Norman England post-1066.

This volume of the Haskins Society Journal includes papers read at the 38th Annual Conference of the Haskins Society at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in November 2019; papers read at earlier Haskins conference sessions; and individual paper submissions. Fiona J. Griffiths delivered the C. Warren Hollister Memorial Lecture and Jesse Patrick Harrington's essay received the 2019 Bethell Prize, judged by Fiona J. Griffiths of Stanford University, USA. This is the regular volume for 2020, created during the onslaught of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Editors would like to offer thanks to the contributors, anonymous reviewers, and to Caroline Palmer and the excellent staff at Boydell & Brewer for their help and patience during the production of this volume. Though the papers herein were delivered before COVID-19 hit, the construction of this volume took place during the pandemic. Archives and libraries closed, Boydell & Brewer was temporarily shuttered, and their staff – and all the contributors featured here – sheltered where they were, all around the world. It is a testament to their perseverance and fortitude that you hold this volume in your hands.

The Haskins Society Journal is an international refereed journal, and its contents are not limited to papers read at the Society's own conference or at the sessions that it sponsors at Leeds, Kalamazoo, or other venues. Papers on topics in the many fields and periods of the medieval past to which Charles Homer Haskins contributed, including but not limited to early English, Viking, Norman, and Angevin history as well as the history of the neighboring peoples and territories, are welcome from any scholar. Authors intending to submit are asked to consult the Society's website (www.haskinssociety.org) or write to the Editor (Dr. Laura Gathagan, Department of History, SUNY Cortland, P.O. Box 2000 Cortland, NY 13045-0900, USA; email: laura.gathagan@cortland.edu) or Associate Editors (Dr. William North, Department of History, Carleton College,North College Street, Northfield, MN 55057, USA; email: wnorth@carleton.edu or Dr. Charles C. Rozier, Department of History, The Palatine Centre, Durham University, Stockton Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK, c.c.rozier@durham.uk.ac).

Mathilda of Flanders’s coronation and anointing on the feast of Pentecost, 11 May, 1068 at Westminster was unlike any other seen in England before and included innovative triumphalist elements confected solely for her. It was also the first time (as far as we know) that the ritual was performed for a queen who was noticeably pregnant. Mathilda was carrying her last child, the future Henry I, as she became a divinely ordained ruler through anointing and coronation. Not only was Mathilda the originator of Norman queenship on Pentecost in 1068, she embodied the new Norman royal dynasty highlighted by the contours of her own form.

Acknowledging my debt to the work of Johanna Dale, I consider two important elements of Mathilda’s royal inauguration: the date that she chose for her rite and the personnel who might have had a hand in crafting it. The day of Pentecost was one of the highest holy days of the year, second only to Easter in importance in the liturgical calendar. The year 1068 signalled a permanent end to the honeymoon period – if there indeed was one – between the tattered remains of the English aristocracy and the new Norman administration. One fundamental assumption underpins my analysis: that Mathilda of Flanders, duchess of Normandy and first Norman queen of England, had a say in her own coronation rite. I do not maintain that Mathilda planned her liturgy alone any more than William the Conqueror did his. The ministers and officials who served them both brought enormous expertise to this ceremony. I will argue, in fact, that the nascent Norman royal court was unusually well served by a talented group of liturgists. It would have been absurd, however, to ignore the expertise the Norman queen had in such abundance at her command. But there is not direct evidence about the authors of Mathilda’s coronation. In any mystery, the foundational question must always be cui bono? Who benefits? The key beneficiary of Mathilda’s coronation was undeniably the queen herself. Secondarily, it also served William and the entire Anglo-Norman administration at the head of which they both stood. Failing any evidence to the contrary, then, I propose that Mathilda made choices about her own royal inauguration.