Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the staff of a particularly large number of Record Offices
for assistance in person or by letter with this volume, especially the patient and
knowledgeable staff of the Lincolnshire Archives and the staff of the Local
History Section of Lincoln Central Library. Margaret Harpin and Alan
Richardson provided several monumental inscriptions from Leicestershire and
Huntingdonshire respectively. Our colleagues at the University of York
Borthwick Institute and the University of London Institute of Historical Research
have been supportive and encouraging as ever. However, an especial debt of
gratitude is owed to Nicholas Bennett, the vice-chancellor and librarian of
Lincoln Cathedral, for specialist advice and help at all stages, and for generously
spending a great deal of time checking the text and finding further information.
This volume would have been much poorer without him.
J.M.H.
D.M.S.