I AM GREATLY obliged to my MA and PhD supervisor at York, Craig Taylor, who got me started down this path by listening to my disjointed first impressions of Charles’s canonization process, then pointing out, “It sounds like you’re interested in reputation.” This insight, and the guidance he generously gave me as I went on to figure out what that meant, has been invaluable.

My understanding of what I was trying to do in this book has also been profoundly shaped by the many students I’ve been lucky to teach at the universities of York, Ghent, Durham, and Oslo. Thank you for all our conversations and for sharing the learning journey.

As this project developed across many hurdles of the modern “early career researcher” life (let alone the coronavirus pandemic), I deeply appreciate everyone who made the path less precarious and the work less stressful. Foremost among these is Frederik Buylaert, who fostered my postdoctoral career at Ghent University (where I first hatched the cunning plan of writing two books instead of one), and with whom I feel privileged to have worked. Ellie Woodacre (who also gave valuable comments on the completed draft) and Danna Messer were instrumental in bringing what I thought would be a quick little study to Arc Humanities Press, where Tania Colwell has shepherded me through the later stages of publication. I sincerely appreciate all their support and patience.

For their technical expertise, I would like to thank Laura Macy for the copy-editing, Martine Maguire-Weltecke for the typesetting, and Sally Osborn for the index. Open Access to this book was made possible thanks to the FWO (Research Foundation – Flanders), under grant 12ZX221N. The preliminary stages of this research were additionally funded by the Overseas Student Scholarship and Overseas Research Scholarship schemes of the University of York.