In May 1998, the North American Branch of the Richard III Society, in conjunction with the Departments of History at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and Ohio University, held its second conference on fifteenth-century studies. These academic conferences highlight the Society's commitment to the advancement of the study of fifteenth-century English history in the United States. The conference, "Traditions and Transformations in Fifteenth-Century
England," was meant (like the first conference held in 1995) as a "prequel" to the annual International Medieval Congress at Kalamazoo, Michigan, enabling the organizers to bring together an international panel of speakers to participate in a discussion that tells us the "state of the art" in fifteenth-century history. This second conference built on the success of the first and attracted a number of attendees; both senior and junior scholars working in the period. A number of non-academic members of the Richard III Society attended as well, demonstrating the breadth of interest and popularity that fifteenth-century studies has in the United States. The third of these conferences was held in late April 2001.
The title of the conference allowed for the incorporation of a diverse selection of papers, ranging chronologically from Henry IV to Henry VII, thematically from politics to art history, literature and dramatic studies, and comparatively with papers on both England and France. The participants were mix of both senior and junior scholars working in the period from the United States and Great Britain, achieving the diversity that had been hoped for. The papers in this volume are based on twelve of the fourteen papers delivered at the conference. Since we intended our sessions to serve as a working conference, none of the papers, as published, are exactly as they were presented. All our authors took the comments they received and revised and extended their contributions.