I think it is fair to say that one is always drawn to the country of one's birth and I am no exception. My father was a cotton merchant who operated in the markets of Cairo and Alexandria, selling cotton to the manufacturers of cloth in Manchester after World War I. Thus he followed in the footsteps of earlier traders who bought goods from Egypt to satisfy the European markets. Unlike many of his contemporaries, he learnt to speak and write Arabic during the five years he lived there.

Inspiration for How Many Miles to Babylon? (‘Babylon’ being the medieval European Christians’ name for Cairo) came first from reading the volumes of the Voyages en Egypte published by L'Institut Français Archéologie Orientale du Caire. I would like to thank the director for his kind permission in allowing me to quote from these sixteenth-century chronicles. I would also like to thank the editors of the Studium Biblicanum Franciscanum in Jerusalem for allowing me to quote from their publications of the writings of the early Franciscan friars in Palestine, Egypt and beyond. My thanks go to the librarians of the Map Room at the Cambridge University Library, who undertook valuable research on my behalf, and to Helen Tookey, who with Andrew Kirk oversaw the editing of the text at Liverpool University Press. Paul and Janet Starkey of Durham University gave up their time to advise on Arabic spelling and provided helpful suggestions.

Above all, I owe a great debt to the late Professor John Morrison, formerly fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge and first President of Wolfson College, Cambridge, who read the manuscript chapter by chapter and sustained me with his encouragement.