From the Editor

When I was approached by Sol Miguel-Prendes and the Executive Committee to take over as editor of La corónica, I was excited, but it took a while to decide whether or not I would have the time and support to take on such an important job. It happens that 2012 was a busy year for me, with several new opportunities to serve the profession, some of which I accepted, others I turned down, but I always knew that this one would be the most rewarding. I am deeply honored to be working with all the scholars and educators who contribute their research, their time and their expertise to making La corónica the premier, international journal of Hispanomedieval studies in North America. I want to express my sincere gratitude to the members of the Executive Committee for giving me the opportunity to serve.

Thanks to George Greenia, who invited Sol to move La corónica to Wake Forest University, it is now a tradition that the new editor travel, much like a pilgrim, to collect our back issues and archives. Driving in mid September from Columbus to Winston-Salem across the rugged Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, and finally gathering all those boxes from Sol’s office, felt like a ritual journey at times, with a few exceptions; it was full of all the hospitality a traveler hopes for, but had none of the hardships pilgrims come to expect. During my visit, I received some much needed reassurance that this was a manageable task, and it is all the more so because of Sol’s steady hand and diligence during her tenure as editor-in-chief. Under Sol’s professional eye, and with the help of our last production editor, Cornelia Barr, La corónica continued to grow in visibility and production value, while maintaining the highest standards of excellence. The present issue, which will be an important reference work for scholars working on religious thought and practices in late medieval and early modern Spain, is as much the result of Sol’s and Cynthia Robinson’s vision as it is the product of my own modest efforts to get the volume to press.

We all owe a debt of gratitude to Sol for five years of exemplary service to our profession. One of her many accomplishments as editor-in-chief was bringing La corónica to ProjectMuse (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/la_coronica/), where our readers can find this issue with color images and links to websites, along with back issues beginning with vol. 29. In her last “From the Editor” (vol. 40.2), Sol also pointed to new challenges for the humanities in general, and for La corónica specifically with regard to present and emerging technologies, but I am confident that new collaborations with groups like ProjectMuse, and our own work at establishing an on-line presence will position us to not only meet those challenges, but lead the way forward. Medievalists have embraced new technologies in the past, and I have no doubt that we will continue to apply our experience and expertise in innovate ways well into the future. I know I can count on your support, and I encourage you to share your own thoughts on these challenges with me, either directly, or through our La corónica website blog (http://www.lacoronica.org).

The job at hand is still daunting, but I am comforted by the fact that I can rely on an experienced editorial staff. I want to thank Isidro J. Rivera, Emily Francomano, Mark Johnston, and Francisco Gago-Jover for making my transition as smooth as possible, and for taking care of so much of the work that too often goes unnoticed, especially with a journal as multifaceted and active as La corónica. As you all know, we do not only publish the highest quality scholarship on the languages, literatures and cultures of Iberia. As a publication of the MLA Division of Medieval Hispanic Languages, Literatures and Cultures, we organize panels and events at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, and at the MLA Annual Convention. We also award distinguished...