In early 2019 we were invited to co-edit this issue of the Yearbook of English Studies on pre-Conquest literature and by March of that year had agreed to take on the project. Alert to issues of periodization and chronology in early medieval studies, not to mention the question of which Conquest, Danish or Norman, was at stake, we were minded to extend the remit of the collection to 1200.

Borders mark disciplines, territories, conceptual places, offering havens for some but certainly not all who work in early medieval studies. Borders can be open or closed. In 2019 'Anglo-Saxon Studies' remained a place whose borders were more often closed than open. It had long-established, rigorously policed boundaries. Listening to and learning from the anti-racist research and activism of many, including Sierra Lomuto, Adam Miyashiro, Dorothy Kim, and Mary Rambaran-Olm, it was hoped that the project of early medieval studies or early medieval English studies might prove more open, welcoming, hospitable.