As the agricultural cycle starts to wind down for the winter, my next post on 'The Experience of Work in Early Modern England' looks forward to its resumption in the new year, when... ‘Ploughmen go whistling to their toils’ manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/14/t...

As you dig out your chunky knitwear from the back of the draw, I know you are wondering: 'How did people prepare for winter 400 years ago?' Read today's post to find out (and whet your appetite for our new book The Experience of Work in Early Modern England) manyheadedmonster.com/2025/10/07/t...

📢NEW MANY HEADED MONSTER POST📢 A series of posts to celebrate the publication of a really important new study of work in #EarlyModern England, by Jane Whittle, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb, Taylor Aucoin. Just off to fetch a 'burden of wood'. 🪵🪵🪵🪵🪵 🗃️

Some big news: the University of Birmingham is launching a new MA in Gender & Sexuality. It's interdisciplinary, with a focus on combining theory & practice. It's going to be amazing. I'm convening it: message or email with questions. www.birmingham.ac.uk/study/postgr... @unibirmingham.bsky.social

#CallforApplications 📣 The GHIL awards a number of #scholarships to #postgraduate students, Habilitanden and #postdocs at German universities to enable them to carry out research in Britain. Scholarships are generally awarded for a period of up to three months. 📜 1/3

Are you curious about the potential for archival practices to shape the study of emotion; why there are letters in the English State Papers labelled 'mad'; or how the culture & politics of Elizabethan England shaped people's experience of distress? Find out here! doi.org/10.1017/S008... #earlymodern

Contrasting musical choices for Good Friday!

How did living through a period of violent religious change transform people’s experience of distress? What new light does a history of emotions approach shed on our understanding of the English Reformation? For answers see my new OA article in the JEH! doi.org/10.1017/S002...

📢NEW POST: Visual Culture in #EarlyModern England📢 Today Adam Morton considers what historians should do with the alien and often cruel humour of past ages that he finds in in satirical prints 🗃️ #Skystorians manyheadedmonster.com/2025/02/27/p...

📢NEW MANY-HEADED MONSTER SERIES📢 Today I introduce 'Visual Culture in #EarlyModern England', a series that celebrates the relaunch of the brilliant 'British Printed Images to 1700' database and showcases historians' use of printed images. 🗃️ #Skystorians manyheadedmonster.com/2025/02/24/a...

CONCERT REVIEW | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ Overall, the programme was intriguing and brave, and the Birmingham Bach Choir delivered a committed and stylistic performance of these challenging works, for which the whole team should be congratulated. www.davidbartonmusic.co.uk/concert-revi...

New Book coming out! boydellandbrewer.com/978183765166...

Pevsner on Brum: 'There have been no dramatic events in the history of Birmingham, and only a few national heroes. But there has been the constant industry and ingenuity of many people, which has gradually gathered momentum to establish a great city.'

The first in what's likely to become a series of occasional posts with (linguistic rather than architectural) gems from Pevsner's 'Buildings of England'. On Bedworth, Warks: 'A depressing small town. The church, though neutral, is architecturally too good and too solid for it.'!

Merry Christmas everybody, I hope you have a lovely time, whatever you are doing, wherever you are, whoever you are spending it with!

Thrilled that Tara Hamling's and my article 'From Rejection to Reconciliation: Protestantism and the Image in Early Modern England' is now available to view open access on the Journal of British Studies website! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Routledge are having a 25% off sale! You could buy @drjpw.bsky.social and my guide to finding and working with #EarlyModern primary sources 🗃️ www.routledge.com/Understandin...

A rosy-fingered dawn in south east Birmingham this morning!

"The Rabble that Can Write" *NEW* post from @markhailwood.bsky.social giving you a taste of the many, many different ways people left their mark (ha!) in #EarlyModern England: manyheadedmonster.com/2023/11/21/t...

Mark's arrival means all the monster heads are here now, polluting these once blue skies ... #EarlyModern 🗃️ @brodiewaddell.bsky.social @drjpw.bsky.social

Autumn in full swing!