Acknowledgments
In the many years that it has taken to research and write this book I have counted on the guidance, advice, and support of countless colleagues, friends, and family members. The list is so long I will undoubtedly omit some names, and for that I apologize.
First, I would like to thank Mahinder S. Kingra, my editor at Cornell University Press, for his many suggestions, for his support for this project, and for securing the excellent reviewers who helped make this a better book.
Over the years, I have presented parts of this project at several conferences and colloquia, benefiting from comments and encouragement from various audiences. I owe particular thanks to Teo Ruiz for his sound advice and his invitation to participate in the colloquium “Iberia, the Mediterranean, and the World in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period,” held in 2018 at UCLA. I also thank Michelle Hamilton and Vicente Lledó-Guillem for their suggestions and for their invitations to present my work at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Hofstra University, respectively. These talks took place in early 2020, just before the COVID-19 pandemic made in-person presentations impossible and put grieving, funerary practices, and mental health (subjects that are a focus of this book) at the forefront of our collective social anxieties.
I have also gained insights workshopping parts of the book at various venues, including the introduction at CU Boulder’s Center for Medieval and Early Modern Studies (thanks to Rebecca Maloy), and chapter 4 in the CU Mediterranean Studies Group, where I benefited from comments from four respondents: two of my colleagues, Céline Dauverd and Suzanne Magnani, as well as Cristina Guardiola-Griffiths and Isidro Rivera. I also presented a paper on the expulsions from Portugal at “Purity, Pollution, Purification, and Defilement in the Premodern Mediterranean,” the Mediterranean Seminar Summer Workshop organized by Naama Cohen-Hanegbi and Moshe Blidstein at the University of Haifa in June 2022. Finally, I workshopped sections of chapters 6 and 8 with a most inspiring group of gender historians who started meeting regularly via Zoom when the pandemic began: Michelle Armstrong-Partida, Janna Bianchini, Roisin Cossar, Theresa Earenfight, Judith Evans-Grubbs, Alexandra Gerson de Oliveira, Emily Hutchinson, Marie Kelleher, Amy Livingstone, Susan McDonough, Miriam Shadis, and Dana Wessel Lightfoot.
The opportunity to develop particular aspects of this project in the form of contributions to edited volumes has also helped focus and refine my ideas, and for that I thank Michael Gerli and Ryan Giles (editors of Routledge’s Hispanic Studies Companion to Medieval Iberia) and Hilaire Kallendorf (editor of A Companion to the Queenship of Isabel la Católica).
I also want to thank the other members of the “Monastic Landscapes” group at the University of Barcelona, in particular, my friends and colleagues Blanca Garí de Aguilera, Marimar Graña Cid, and Núria Jornet Benito. Ana Maria Rodrigues has graciously hosted me in Lisbon on several occasions and has been a resource for all matters Portuguese, while Ellie Woodacre’s insights on queenship have been invaluable. Others who have offered advice and support include James Amelang, John Dagenais, Frank A. Dominguez, Peter Elmore, Emily Francomano, Jerry Hauser, Clara Marías Martínez, the late Nancy Marino (rest in peace), Sol Miguel-Prendes, Diana Pelaz Flores, Felipe Pereda, François Soyer, and Rebecca Winer.
The University of Colorado Boulder has supported my research, awarding me a series of fellowships to travel to archives and libraries in Spain, Portugal, and England: a LEAP Individual Growth Grant from the Office of Faculty Affairs, a small grant and The Hazel Barnes Flat and Schawlbe Travel Grant to London from The Center for the Humanities and the Arts, the Dean’s Fund for Excellence, and Kayden Research Grants for summer research. I am a firm believer that teaching and research go hand in hand and enrich each other. I have already taught parts of this book at the undergraduate and graduate levels, and I thank my students for that enriching experience.
And last but not least, I thank my friends and family, who will undoubtedly be relieved that they no longer have to ask me how the book is progressing. Their enthusiasm and support were crucial to keeping my spirits up over the many years it has taken to bring this project to fruition. My most heartfelt thanks go to my parents, Luis and Estrella, my children, Alexandra and Raymond, and as always to my husband, Brian Catlos, to whom this book is dedicated.