Introduction

Introduction There are no rales or conventions on the number of Festschriften which may be offered to a distinguished scholar by his friends and admirers. Geoffrey Elton has already received two such tributes: one from his American friends, and the other more British in its contributors. And dmost certdnly there are others still to come. This, the third coUection, comes in the year of his formd retirement - and we stress the adjective because w e are confident that 1988 wiU not mark his withdrawd from the historicd scene but rather a redirecting of his abundant energy. Indeed speculation is alreadyrifeabout the possible subjects which will come under his rigorous scrutiny in the fruitful years ahead. However, such speculation is not our present concern, and it has no significant place in this festschrift. For this is a tribute not only to his past achievements and present standing, but dso a token of respect and affection from the many Australasian historians of medievd and early m o d e m Europe to w h o m he has become both friend and mentor. Space has not been avdlable to accommodate dl those who wished to contribute to this collection. A n early and major editorid problem was whether or not to base selection on the relevance of contributions to a central theme, procldmed with an eye-catchingtitleon the cover. Such a device appeals to market-conscious publishers, but it is, nonetheless, an artificial device. Moreover, as the range of interests of would-be Australasian contributors was so diverse, a selection based on this criterion would have conceded, distorted, even destroyed, the very purpose of this festschrift: a tribute which was truly representative of the sizable and varied Australasian community of medievd and early modem scholars. There is, w e believe, a particular case to be made for this approach by the Australasian community. To a considerable extent and for similar reasons, of course, w e share the debt expressed in the other Festschriften: to Geoffrey Elton's intellectud influence, for example, and to the ubiquity and persistence of his friendships. However, of especial significance for us has been his quite extraordinary generosity and energy in maintaining and sustaining those networks: through prodigies of cheerful, informd, informative and encouraging correspondence (usudly written when many of us are still abed); through fearsomely demanding travels; and through the hosphatity to dl who descend on him at home or in Memorial Court from the most distant regions of the globe. T o many Antipodean voyagers, from what was once regarded by some historians (when in kindly mood) as the periphery of the academic world, immediate acceptance on equd terms by a metropolitan scholar of Elton's status has been a tangible reassurance, without which their ambitions and enthusiasm 2 Introduction might have withered. The hallmarks of Eltonian professionalism - rigorous standards of scholarship, evaluation of the past on its own terms, integrity to the sources, and hard work - have dways been demanded. Yet there has always been abundant room, too, for persond kindness, support, guidance, reading and criticism, laced with occasional and usually weti-merited admonition and even reproof. Undoubtedly scholars in aU parts of the world have been the beneficiaries of this characteristic admixture of the stem and the caring, but nowhere more so, we suspect, than in the Antipodes. The loneliness of the long-distance historian has been particularly acute amongst those working to establish a credible tradition and reputation for medieval and early modern extra-Austrdasian history. N o so long ago, before the reproductive-process revolution, the primary sources (manuscript and printed) for students of the period were far away. In the 1960s, for example, one early m o d e m historian in N e w Zedand had to travel four hundred miles to use the Letters and Papers of the Reign of Henry VIII. Even worse was the personal isolation. Contacts with those working in the same or aUied fields were few and far between. The invisible coUege of intemationd scholarship seemed distant and inaccessible. T w o developments have altered that situation for the better. One was the expansion of universities in Australasia in the 1960s and early 1970s. There...