For Me, It Was My Grandmother. I honestly don't know whether I would be here today, writing and sharing what I have learned from life. But I am. For the first eight years of my life, my grandparents gave me something precious. They filled my world with stories, curiosity, music, history, laughter, responsibility, and an abiding respect for truth. Those years became the measure by which I would later judge much of my life. When I sat down to write this introduction, I laugh

They began in a world where power was granted and land defined man’s place in it. In Normandy, their names appear beside abbots and dukes, keepers of coin, witnesses to charters, and men trusted when the structure of a kingdom was still being formed. After the conquest, they did not wander. They were placed. In England, they became stewards not only of land but also of the king’s own household. They helped build the systems that turned conquest into order. Generations later,