News

Margaret and Sydney enjoyed their lives together. Based at their home in Brighton they enjoyed writing chapters and books, going to conferences and encouraging a collegial circle of friends to publish and to inspiring other researchers follow in their footsteps. Sydney was a leading authority on jousts and tournaments and wrote about Machiavelli, spectacular pageantry and festival occasions in numerous genres. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Antiquaries, in his later years he had continued to contribute to the volumes of collected essays and monographs in the European Festival Studies 1450—1700 Series through its developments from Ashgate and Routledge to its current home with BREPOLS.

Together Margaret and Sydney were a powerful team, publishing with a range of high-profile publishing houses, including Yale and latterly with the Series on European Festivals research. Margaret acted as one of the Series co-general editors (initially with Ronnie Mulryne and Margaret Shewring, joined by Marie-Claude Canova-Green and, from 2018, Richard Cooper).

They enjoyed social occasions, particularly fine dining and conference planning and participation – sharing a great sense of humour, sometimes dryly satirical, alongside a shared passion for books and, in later years, a shared vision for protecting the future of the collections and activities of the Warburg Institute in London where they had met.

It is no surprise to their colleagues, friends and neighbours that Sydney suffered ill health in his later years and sometimes it was only his promise to Margaret to complete her posthumous monograph that really kept him moving forwards with excellent academic acumen and a quest for making it as perfect as possible. At least he knew that this is within a whisker of being published

He will be much much missed.

Professor Emerita Margaret Shewring, University of Warwick.

For further news see the Warburg Institute and the British Academy web sites.