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).

In his now classic study of the social dimensions of medieval reading techniques, The Implications of Literacy. Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries, Brian Stock introduced the term ‘textual communities’ to describe groups who came to be united by a set of shared texts and, more importantly, a shared allegiance to specific individuals who guided their understanding of these texts and their implications for personal and institutional life. He noted that:

For Stock, ‘literacy’ thus represented not so much the mere ability to read or otherwise access the content of texts, but rather the more comprehensive and demanding instinct or habit to process the world and human behavior through the refractive and defractive power of texts. In his study, Stock concentrated on the way in which this concept of literacy could assist in understanding the emergence of lay heretical and reformist groups in France and Italy during the eleventh century.