The Fernão Lopes Portal and its precursor, the Fernão Lopes Translation Project, are both indebted to a large community of people and institutions, as it would be expected considering their complexity and magnitude. As such, these projects could only be undertaken thanks to the trust, dedication and encouragement of a veritable global village of researchers, translators, advisors and sponsors scattered through eight universities and four countries on two continents.
To start from the beginning, the Fernão Lopes Translations Project is indebted particularly to Ms. Elspeth Ferguson, Tamesis Commissioning Editor, and Professor Alan Deyermond for recognizing the important contribution it could bring to many areas of Medieval Studies and for proposing Boydell & Brewer as the publisher. The Direcção Geral do Livro, dos Arquivos e das Bibliotecas, Portugal, through the diligences of Dr. Assunção Mendonça, was the first institution to take the initiative of sponsoring the Project with a significant grant. Following these two demonstrations of trust, Dr. Patrícia Anne Odber de Baubeta, at the time Senior Lecturer in the Department of Hispanic Studies and Department Head, and Professor Francis Lough, offered the University of Birmingham, UK, as the venue for the Project’s annual meetings. Encouraged by their support, the Directors of the Project decided to apply for a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the hope of obtaining the substantial funding necessary to bring it to completion.
The importance of the NEH’s mission, dedicated to teaching and learning, research, and the preservation and dissemination of educational and cultural resources can never be over-emphasized. The number, quality, and ground-breaking nature of the projects selected and funded every year, beyond impressive, are also a significant investment into understanding our immediate world, its antecedents and thus better prepare people and nations for planning the future. Education and understanding are also two of the key objectives of the present Project, hence the Team’s determination in making the Fernão Lopes’s chronicles accessible to a wider community of scholars and interested readers regardless of their background. Dr. Lydia Medici proved to be a most helpful liaison officer at the NEH, offering guidance and words of encouragement whenever it was necessary to seek her advice on administrative matters.
Many Portuguese institutions, despite their limited budgets at times of financial austerity, still made their contribution in the form of logistical support, such as was the case of the Biblioteca Nacional de Portugal and the Art Library of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. The latter, for instance, has authorized the posting of photographs of historical architectural interest from their digital collections.
The Project is also greatly indebted to a group of talented Portuguese photographers, who generously put their collection of beautiful images of castles and medieval towns at our disposal, namely João Correia, Gonçalo Lopes, Joaquim Barbosa and João Paulo Gomes.
Not to be forgotten are the numismatics specialists, Luís Vieira, from PortugalMoedas, and José Silva, from All Euro Coins, who have facilitated images from their business websites so that the references to medieval coins in Fernão Lopes’s chronicles can become more than just the name of an obscure and obsolete currency item.
There is a long list of colleagues and friends who have been of great significance to the Project, for their enthusiasm, curiosity and assistance in publicizing our work, in particular Dr. Dana Bultman, coordinator of the Romance Languages Colloquia at the University of Georgia and her graduate assistant Louise Goodman who collaborated in the early stages of developing our database. Much appreciated was also the late Professor Noel Fallows’s advice on bibliography and military matters, of which there is ample reference throughout the chronicles.
Needless to say, all members of the Fernão Lopes Translation team (see respective page) were absolutely outstanding. Without their support, dedication, and the long hours of labor of our translators, beyond their own personal and professional commitments, the Translation Project would never have become a reality, neither would the present Fernão Lopes Portal.
A very special word of thanks and appreciation goes to Professor Teresa Amado’s family, especially her sister Luísa Amado and niece Joana Sousa Monteiro. Their generous assistance helped the Project team, in some way, to overcome the great loss of our colleague and co-Director, by making available to us the last translation notes and corrections which she didn't have the opportunity to share because her life was suddenly cut short.
As already mentioned in the page dedicated to the History of the Project, there is an enormous debt of gratitude toward the Institute of Medieval Studies (IEM), especially Professor Maria João Branco and Dr Tiago Viúla de Faria, responsible for the migration of the Fernão Lopes Portal from the University of Georgia, USA, to the server of the Faculdade de Ciências Sociais e Humanas (FCSH), Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal. Together with the input of other Fernão Lopes specialists, such as Professor Isabel Maria de Barros Dias, Universidade Aberta, Portugal, and many more fellow medievalists, the mission of developing the Fernão Lopes Portal will carry on...
To all of them, our heartfelt gratitude.
Amélia P. Hutchinson
