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Acknowledgments This book concerns authorship and the material conditions within which it occurs. Many individuals and institutions have generously supported my own authorship, and it is a pleasure to be able to thank them for helping to make this book possible. Among the many research librarians who have assisted me, I should mention especially David Lincove at Ohio State University and Marina Smyth at the University of Notre Dame. Christine Glassner generously shared with me her inventory of Gerson manuscripts in Lower Austria. Brother Florian Ehebruster kindly sent me images of a manuscript from Seitenstetten Abbey. The staff at the Hill Monastic Manuscript Library in Collegeville, Minnesota, welcomed me as a Heckman Research Fellow; for the study of Gerson, their collection is priceless. I also wish to thank the many librarians in Europe who helped me canvass the manuscript evidence that underlies important parts of this book: at the British Library in London; at the Institut de Recherche et d’Histoire des Textes, the Bibliothèque nationale de France, and the Bibliothèque de l’Arsenal in Paris; and at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek in Munich. A year of study in Paris was made possible through support from a fellowship provided by the Newberry Library and the École des Chartes. During that year, Gilbert Ouy welcomed me warmly to his équipe at Villejuif , now in its third incarnation as the Laboratoire de médiévistique occidentale de Paris; he also read my work many times with great care. My few disagreements with him pale next to my respect and admiration for his accomplishments. Without his pioneering research, this book would not have been possible in its current form. Ezio and Monique Ornato, Carla Bozzolo, and Nicole Pons answered many questions and offered me a comfortable place to work in their magnificent library. I wrote three chapters in Toronto while on a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies under the direction of Father James McConica. Father James Farge and Joseph Goering both read early versions of Chapters 6 and 7 and gave helpful advice and criticism. I also learned much from the participants in the Interdisciplinary Seminar. I must also thank the University of Texas at Arlington for generously allowing me to defer my position for a year to take the fellow- 334 Acknowledgments ship at Toronto, and especially my department chair, Don Kyle, and my dean, Beth Wright, for their support in making that happen. Since arriving at Ohio State in 2006, I’ve enjoyed working in a wonderful community of scholars. The College of Humanities and the Department of History provided a generous subvention to help with the cost of publication. I enjoyed a stimulating discussion of Chapter 7 with David Cressy, Geoffrey Parker, Dale Van Kley, and the other participants (including a very sharp group of graduate students) in the Early Modern Seminar. I also wish to thank the History of the Book Group, under the organization of Cynthia Brokaw, for their helpful discussion of Chapter 6. Many other scholarly and personal friendships have lightened the burden of authorship along the way. James Forse first initiated me into the study of medieval history as a professional discipline; his continued friendship has been a constant source of encouragement. Bruce Woll has listened to endless conversations about the book and read chapters with unflagging interest. Gerson probably would have frowned on such curiosity, but I found it refreshing and stimulating. David Bachrach, Christine Caldwell Ames, Lezlie Knox, and James Mixson made numerous tangible and intangible contributions to the book. Chapter 7 benefited from the comments of medievalists at Northwestern University and at the Ohio Medieval Colloquium. Jim Bartholomew, Rita Copeland, Alan Farmer, James Forse, Maarten Hoenen, Howard Kaminsky, Ethan Knapp, Deborah McGrady, John Ott, Mircea Platon, Diane Reilly, David Staley, Kathleen Tonry, and Lori Walters all helped me improve individual chapters. Otto Bohlmann and Noreen O’Connor-Abel at Penn Press gave expert attention to the manuscript, and Jerry Singerman guided the work through the publishing cycle. A sincere thank you to all of them! Early in my writing, Robert Lerner provided a wonderful forum for me to talk about Gerson at the Intellectual History Seminar at the Newberry Library in Chicago. He then responded to my article in the American Historical Review with a detailed, helpful, and encouraging letter. I also benefited greatly from the comments of William Courtenay, who revealed his identity as an outside reader during the review process. Maureen Boulton first...

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