Loyalty Binds Me: Book Launch

The Trust On…
Loyalty Binds Me: Book Launch

Copies of Loyalty Binds Me at Barley Hall, York.

On March 29, 2025, a loyal retinue of medievalists descended upon Barley Hall, York, to promote the Trust’s new volume, Loyalty Binds Me—a Festschrift in honour of Peter and Carolyn Hammond—and to further celebrate its honourees. One can’t have a true Festschrift without a Fest, and this party could hardly have been better planned. For one, Barley Hall provided a broadly period-appropriate æsthetic, with the requisite fizz being served in reproduction 15th-century earthenware goblets. Moreover, the venue boasted particular personal significance, as both of the Hammonds have been long-time trustees of Barley Hall.

Festschrift co-editors Richard Asquith and Christian Steer compèred the launch masterfully. Christian celebrated the speed with which the project had come together—two years from idea to launch—and took the opportunity to particularly praise publisher Shaun Tyas for turning a bouquet of essays into a beautiful and amply-illustrated volume in a mere four months. Richard then presented the man and woman of the hour, dedicating the volume as a token of thanks for their centrality in the founding and support of the YHT. He summarised the Hammonds’ multitudes of Ricardian accolades: aside from their own research and publications, Carolyn has been Barton librarian, Peter has served as the Richard III Society’s research officer, and both have edited The Ricardian! Christian and Richard, succeeding the Hammonds as the YHT’s Chairman and Secretary respectively, see the volume as a particularly apt thanks for committed support of the trust: a number of the Festschrift’s contributors are trustees and grant recipients.

The editors’ speeches concluded with a note on the volume’s title and cover. Richard III’s motto loyaulté me lie was chosen to reflect the loyalty which the Hammonds have had to the field, exemplified in over fifty years’ work in, and promotion of fifteenth-century studies. The Festschrift’s cover image of Richard III and his Queen Anne Neville, taken from the Rous Roll, was said to mirror Peter and Carolyn themselves as the King and Queen of fifteenth-century studies—though Richard was quick to emphasise the far lower level of controversy in the Hammonds’ reputation!

Rounding off the launch, Peter and Carolyn gave a few words of their own. Peter expounded the mission underlying his commitment to Ricardian studies, namely the harmonisation of amateur and professional historians, the dispulsion of a fear among the former that the latter may be “two-headed” creatures hell-bent on evil. Carolyn, meanwhile, emphasised the reliance of their scholarly success and longevity on her and Peter’s status as a team, demonstrating yet again the aptitude of the Festschrift’s title.

Indeed, the volume’s contributions and contributors once again echo this overarching theme of loyalty-bound service, loyal in this case to Peter’s and Carolyn’s ecumenical approach to Ricardian history. The thirty contributors range from professors emeriti to independent scholars; together, they contribute thirty-two pieces just as diverse. Microhistories mingle with macrohistories, theses on national-level institutions stand shoulder-to-shoulder with meticulous literary and material analyses of historical documents. This breadth of perspective offers glimpses of the past in a manner befitting their status both as parts of complex historical reality, and as elements of a book celebrating the work of such distinguished scholars.

Felix Clayton McClure