Any project of this scale relies on the generosity of editorial staff, librarians, students, and other colleagues. Ursinus College has generously supported image requests and research travel to consult manuscripts. Bailey Ludwig ’19 provided research support. Students in the Fall 2018 English department capstone, Violence and Otherness in Medieval England, provided feedback on the in-progress text and notes, and the volume is far better for their engagement with it. Lori J. Daggar and Rosa Abrahams graciously read early drafts of the introduction with a keen critical eye. Beyond this material support, the departments of English and History at Ursinus College have eagerly inquired about the volume and endured extremely unusual conversation over lunch as a result, and thanks are due to them all for their generosity.

Thomas R. Martin and David Levenson provided key guidance about Josephus, his Latin translators, and Ps. Hegesippus. Frank T. Coulson’s generosity and expert paleographical eye were invaluable. Fritz Graf and Sarah Iles Johnston guided us through the Sibylline Oracles. Will Batstone, as always, helped us see the poesis in historiography, no matter its genre, while Tim Joseph, Blaise Nagy, Steve Maiullo, Scott Kennedy, David T. Gura, Thomas Bihl, Deanna Singh, and Robert Albis provided support and advice along the way. Sturgis student Grace Rapo, with her own work on the Jewish war and Josephus, proved a critical interlocutor about matters Josephus at an early stage.

We thank staff at the Beinecke Library at Yale University; at the Bodleian Library, Oxford University; the Pierpont Morgan Library; and at the British Library. Staff at the Ursinus College library (most especially Interlibrary Loan), the Sturgis school library (with a surprisingly robust Interlibrary Loan!), and the Rossell Hope Robbins Library at the University of Rochester provided bibliographic support. At the Middle English Texts Series, thanks are due to the entire editorial team, most especially Pamela Yee, assistant editor; Ashley Conklin and Steffi Delcourt; and we thank both our anonymous reviewer and Alan Lupack for thoughtful and meticulous feedback. Russell A. Peck and Thomas Hahn saw the promise of the volume and encouraged the work throughout. Thanks are also due to the National Endowment for the Humanities for their long-time support of the Middle English Texts Series.

This project was inspired in part by the work and teaching of John Wilson, long-time professor of English at the College of the Holy Cross. What we discovered in his dissertation work led us to the poem some years after his death, but his life’s work, especially in the classroom, planted the seeds. Sarah Stanbury and James Kee provided crucial foundations that enabled us to take this project on. We are grateful to Karen McShane and Megan Wright for tireless support both intellectual and emotional. Alexander McShane, Freddie McShane, and Bob Wright have also been crucial supporters throughout this work.