'Preserving the Perishable'

Professor Dobson's Inaugural lecture as Professor of Medieval History takes as its first theme the remarkable expansion of his subject in the last half century, to an extent that his predecessors since the Chair was founded in 1937 would have found hard to imagine. Although the financial restrictions of the 1980s have fallen disproportionately on medievalists within British universities, various arguments are advanced in the Lecture to suggest that their discipline is on the eve of an interesting future. The lecture then proceeds to discuss three genres of "changing community" which have recently engaged the attention of medieval historians to remarkable effect. The lecture concludes with some suggestions as to the most likely lines of profitable research within these "communities" over the next few years.