Foreword

The International Association of University Professors of English (IAUPE) owes its practical inception to the untiring efforts of a distinguished medievalist, C.L.Wrenn. From a first Oxford meeting in 1950 there sprang an unbroken series of triennial Conferences, with the provision, in more recent years, of a Medieval Seminar — a meeting, prior to the main Conference, of those whose interests were predominantly, in "language" and the historically earlier aspects of the wide domain of English studies. This, it may be stressed, was never conceived in any spirit of separatism. On the contrary, those who attend the medieval parlement are, whenever possible, enthusiastic participants in the main Conference.