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ix a c k n o w l e d g e m e n t s h This book originated in the three Conway Lectures I gave at the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame in 2009. My first debt of gratitude is to the Medieval Institute and its director, Remie Constable , not only for the invitation, but also for the wonderful nine days I spent there, fully provided with both a house and a bicycle, regally entertained , and intellectually feasted too, with the galaxy of outstanding medievalists and bright graduate students gathered together at Notre Dame. The then managing director of the Notre Dame University Press suggested that I take my time and make a proper book of my material , and I am grateful to her successor for the patience he has shown whilst I have been following, perhaps too literally, this advice. I have given versions of chapters of the following book as lectures or papers in many parts of the world, from Jinan University, Shanghai and Peking University, Beijing, to the Universities of Western Ontario and of Toronto and at L’Université du Québec à Montréal in Montreal,to (nearer home) Warwick, Leeds and the wonderfully titled ‘Serious Metaphysics Seminar’ here in Cambridge. Each occasion has enabled me to correct mistakes and re-think my positions,and so I am immensely grateful to all who arranged and took part in these occasions. Andrew Arlig produced a careful and intelligent response at a Toronto conference to what is now (much helped by his criticisms) chapter 5. I am particularly grateful to Chris Martin, who has read various parts of the book and talked to me in detail about many of the subjects I cover, and to him x Acknowledgements and Peter King for sharing with me their preliminary findings as editors of the Glossae secundum vocales and Logica nostrorum petitioni sociorum . And I am no less grateful to Caterina Tarlazzi, who read through the whole manuscript with scrupulous attention, both spotting minor errors and making valuable substantive criticisms and comments. My gratitude is also due to the two anonymous readers appointed by the publishers and to Stephen Little, acquisitions editor of University of Notre Dame Press, who has guided me through the unexpectedly complex procedure between the manuscript’s submission and its being handed over to the production department, and to the production and editorial department there. I appreciate especially their having chosen so skilled, intelligent, attentive and tactful a copy editor as Elisabeth Magnus, for whose work I am enormously grateful. To Trinity College I owe an almost incalculable debt, for giving me ideal conditions in which to work. The dedication expresses a different, even less calculable , gratitude. Cambridge, December 2012 ...

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