Preparing this edition of four romances from the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries has produced its own adventures — including journeys by sea, car, subway, and bus, the perils of snow, and the languid haze of summer. Through all these peregrinations both earthly and editorial, we have relied on the help of numerous colleagues, students, friends, and family members.

In the first place, we wish to thank the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages and all its supervisory members for their help and encouragement. Special thanks go to our friends at the Robbins Library, particularly Russell A. Peck for setting an editorial standard requiring the best we had to give; Alan Lupack, Curator for providing often obscure research materials and for his careful reading of the manuscript; Karen Saupe, who as assistant editor of METS in its early days proved herself invaluable as troubleshooter, whether giving technical advice about Word Perfect, double-checking references on baffling place names, or providing careful editorial scrutiny. So too do we wish to thank Dong Choon Lee, for his help checking texts against photocopies of the manuscripts, and Mara Amster and Jennifer Church, whose many talents have made the camera-ready process infinitely more efficient.

At Geneseo, we were deeply fortunate to have two of our finest undergraduates, Lisa Lucenti and Laura Sythes, read our glosses and notes to provide a student reader’s perspective. Marie Henry and Gail English supported us in many ways from the English Department Office.

We also wish to thank some special people in our lives who intersected with the production of this volume. Sarah Higley provided an insightful reading of an early draft of the general introduction. Graham in particular thanks his sister and brother-in-law, Susan Drake Cumbie and Seán Cumbie, for their hospitality in Georgia and California while he worked on this manuscript, and his cousins, Donnie and Margaret Johnston of Cunningsburgh, Shetland Isles, who provided their American cousin with a quiet sitting room to work in and even iced tea (despite their personal distaste for it) during a working summer in Scotland. Equally gracious was the hospitality of Mrs. Veronica Herzman in Geneseo. Ron would also like to thank Veronica Herzman, though for different reasons: recently a favorite student and earlier his most important teacher. In addition to the usual gang, Ellen, Suzanne, and Edward Herzman, Wes Kennison, and Bill Cook, Ron also thanks two e-mail buddies — Anne Clark Bartlett (who kept telling him how much an edition of Bevis was needed), and Rick Emmerson. Eve wishes to thank daughter Meghan for her cheerful optimism and ongoing contributions to a rich and diversified domestic life.

Finally, we are grateful to the National Endowment for the Humanities, whose support, even in difficult times, has kept the Middle English Texts Series alive.