Introduction

of this journal will read only one article in this issue on a specific topic on which said peruser is working.But not you, dear reader: you are reading the introduction.Perhaps you are a devoted scholar who reads a journal from front to back.Perhaps you came to this introduction after your search brought you to a specific article and you wanted to see if there was something else in this volume for you.Maybe some of the language in this piece drew your search directly to it.Or perhaps you have just returned from, or are planning to attend, a conference with many diverse themes and papers, such as the conference from which these articles are derived.In autumn 2023, we had the pleasure of learning from scholars working in different fields and on quite different topics at the annual Atlantic Medieval and Early Modern Group (AMEMG) conference.We invite you to share in this pleasure of serendipitous learning.Although our conference papers were varied, several had enough in common that we felt a special issue was warranted.Our intention for this special issue, however, is not to suggest that there is an overarching interpretive narrative to be sought.Rather,