Very few sign-ups for the in-person document sessions on 16 and 17 June. Please circulate with PhD students etc who use legal records in their research (or I won't be able to run the sessions this year). I can promise witchcraft, treason, and all that good stuff (if it runs). Details via the thread.

And here it is! Come to Liverpool in July next year. We have a fantastic [insert appropriate collective noun here] of keynotes: @bkadams.bsky.social, @dnmcinnis.bsky.social, @lucycmunro.bsky.social, Perry Mills & Deborah Payne!

For UK student loans, if you finished the tax year below the annual repayment threshold, it turns out the process for requesting a refund on any monthly payments you made is unexpectedly easy — just in case anyone else has, like me, been putting it off. (You don't even need your P60!)

GET EXCITED! Our biennial conference is happening in THAT LONDON in 2027! It's our 💎 Diamond 💎 Jubilee, so get ready for a party. The #Renaissance Beyond Borders Warburg, 30 June-3 July 2027 Deadline for proposals: 25 September 2026 all info: rensoc.org.uk/cfp/12th-bie... #EarlyModern #SkyStorians

Early May is a lovely time to admire early medieval ruins/apparently I have to go back to work now?

This delightful map of Dartmoor (showing Ashburton to Buckland-in-the-Moor, featuring Ausewell Rocks) was part of an Exchequer case in 1605, for settling the bounds of Ashburton manor: discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C3... [MPB 1/7]

Can someone please tell the SUV drivers that pedestrians crossing side roads have right of way and that, even if that wasn’t the case, you shouldn’t mow them down anyway?

Closing today - please repost!

Look I know I wasn’t meant to be taking more pictures of flowers but look at these beautiful bluebells! and this lovely apple blossom! (It’s Bradninch Black, from the Devon heritage apple orchard at Rosemoor)

Our MA Early Modern Studies trains you in palaeography, book history & archival research skills, plus options in information & literary studies, history & language. Join us for a taster lecture, learn more about the course & ask questions 📅1 May 2-3:30pm BST online app.geckoform.com/events-embed...

Would love a boost for this post to get it to those interested in Arabic manuscripts please and thank you. #Skystorians #MedievalSky @soasuni.bsky.social @soaslibrary.bsky.social @soas-speccoll.bsky.social @soashistory.bsky.social @britishlibrary.bsky.social

Buried 30 paragraphs into this abysmal BBC piece blaming renewables for the high cost of UK electricity is the actual reason it's so expensive, which is fossil gas. But Justin Rowlatt seems uninterested in this detail.

Frantically deleting photos from my phone after a camera-happy day in the British Library yesterday and the themes seem to be: plants in my garden, plants in the allotment, other people's babies, plant babies, old books, plants seen out and about.

Not all books are destined to be best sellers, but this one, my first, means a lot to me. And it has a birthday this month! www.kgbaston.co.uk/2026/04/10/h... ✒️📖

I'm a data scientist @ourworldindata.org and I need help from a botanist or someone local to Kyoto, Japan! 🌸 We present one of the world’s longest climate records: 1,200 years of peak cherry blossom dates in Kyoto. The researcher who maintained it, Prof. Yasuyuki Aono, sadly passed away last year.

Attention #earlyModern #bookHistory and #earlyMusic types! You have to the end of the week to register for the @dormeme16.bsky.social conference Marking Music: The Use of Music Books in Early Modern Europe, at KCL. Registration and the brilliant programme are at www.tickettailor.com/events/aheve...

Just out in 17th Century - my new article on Leonard Wheatcroft, the bard of Ashover, ”Poetry and the Politics of the Parish”. Featuring weathercocks, a non-elite manuscript miscellany, and lots of bellringing! www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

📢 Great news for South West writers... Applications are now open for our 2026 Ronald Duncan Stipends! 🎉 If exploring archives sparks ideas for your writing, this might be the opportunity for you 📖 ✍️ For more info and to apply, please visit our LibGuide ⬇️ #WritingCommunity #AmWriting #Archives

Discover the fascinating world of Renaissance botany on 7 May at 6pm with John Gerard’s magnificent 'Herball' or 'Generall Historie of Plantes' 🪴 This is a small group workshop; booking is essential: exeter-cathedral.org.uk/whats-on/events/in-the-library-with-herball/

Attention #earlyModern #bookHistory and #earlyMusic types! You have to the end of the week to register for the @dormeme16.bsky.social conference Marking Music: The Use of Music Books in Early Modern Europe, at KCL. Registration and the brilliant programme are at www.tickettailor.com/events/aheve...

Step into the world of Shakespeare at the Cathedral Library and Archives! 🪶📜 Come & celebrate the South West Shakespeare Festival 2026 at our pop-up display of Shakespeare and the brilliant writers & thinkers who shaped his age. 📆 24 April, 10am-2pm 🎟 Free tickets: bit.ly/shakespeare-fest-exeter

#CfP 📢 "Evident Tongues, Evident Bodies", eds. Mary Katherine Newman and Rana Banna Seeking chapter proposals on how language and the senses shaped evidence in the #earlymodern world (c.1492–1700). ⏰ Deadline for abstracts: 12 April 2026 🔗 www.ucl.ac.uk/institute-of... #HistoryOfKnowledge

I'm looking for suggestions of museum/heritage education consultants for a small project, ideally south-west based. Any ideas or recommendations greatly received!

Gloomy here today, but on Saturday it was glorious (when it wasn’t hailing)

I’m leading this London Rare Book School course on the history of collecting. Ideal for anyone interested in studying the history of libraries and how and why books have survived. We’ll be looking at why special collections are special. 22-26 June. #bookHistory👇📚📖 ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

⚠️Register before 12 April ⚠️ Marking Music: the Use of Music Books in Early Modern Europe 11–12 May 2026 @cemskcl.bsky.social & online For scholars of music, book history & related to explore how people engaged with books containing music in early modern period. www.tickettailor.com/events/aheve...

Long in the making….here’s my new article about second-hand books and the Bodleian www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/doi/10.3828/...

The jump scare of googling things close to your research and then having your own thesis pop up in the results

Just found out that Catholic writer Thomas Harding, to whom John Jewel wrote his "Reply", was not only also from Devon, but was actually born just six years earlier in the next village.

Just reading the abstract here is giving me flashbacks to some of the spreadsheets I've dealt with. Font formatting as a means to store information: don't do it!!

When your will is actually just another piece of polemical writing. Matthew Sutcliffe, Dean of Exeter in 1628: "Those false teachers alsoe amonge us that palliate popish heresies, and under the name of Arminius, seeke to bringe in poperie and endeavour, with all theire little skill, to reconcile...

Super happy to see Sara Norja and Mari-Lisa Varila’s special issue of Renaissance Studies in print! With contributions by @sonjadrimmer.bsky.social @carriegrif.bsky.social, me, and others! My article is (unsurprisingly) about binding waste. Open access here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

#earlymodern has anyone come across copies of Quarles poems in manuscript miscellanies? Nothing on CELM

I have an article out on the unusual writings of an early-eighteenth-century Anglican curate of Devon, Christopher Lantrow, who thought himself inspired by God to write political sermons in the margins of a parish library book. academic.oup.com/res/advance-...

Portrait of a Lady, by Catharina van Hemessen c. 1528–after 1587. She is the earliest known female #Flemish painter whose work can be clearly verified as hers. This picture was painted c.1548/49. (The Bowes Museum)

We are hiring postdoc researchers to join our #WrittenWorlds project at Birkbeck, with Sue Wiseman, @mdpowelldavies.bsky.social, @richardjansell.bsky.social and I. 0.5FTE, 13 months, focus on women's or provincial non-elite writing #EarlyModern 🗃️ cis7.bbk.ac.uk/vacancy/post...

I'm really looking forward to this event on Monday, where I'll be discussing William Bedwell with Prof. Alastair Hamilton and the curators of the Bedwell exhibition, Deborah Hedgecock & Bridget MacKernan. There's still time to sign up if you'd like to come along! www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/william-be...

WORKSHOP: A Friendly Introduction to Palaeography! 🔎 Explore 14th century medical + culinary recipes 🔎 Based exclusively on records in our Archives 🔎 Learn about Middle English 🔎 No practical experience required 15 April | 2pm-4:30pm Book your tickets: www.exeter-cathedral.org.uk/whats-on/eve...

In person early modern metals event in London next month with me, @laurenworking.bsky.social, and Lubaaba Al-Azami. Please repost and share widely! And register here -- forms.office.com/Pages/Respon...

TCD Library is recruiting a Senior Bibliographer to help catalogue the Fagel Collection! This is a fabulous professional opportunity to work on one of Europe's great early modern private libraries. Closing 10 March at noon. Full details available at www.tcd.ie/hr/vacancies

STRANGE NEVVES of FIERY BALL over Exceter &c.

One hundred and eight, one hundred and nine, one hundred and ... ten? Ottaviano Petrucci's Canti C. N° cento Cinquanta (1503), from the Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, viewer.onb.ac.at/100450FC

Been down some rabbit holes about BUCKRAM today. Earlu modern theatre people -- were 'buckram men' used as props on the stage? (literalising Falstaff's 'men in buckram'?) Military history people -- were dummy straw men, perhaps lined with buckram, used for target practice in the 16th century?

#skystorians A rare permanent job at Warwick - Assistant Prof in Early Modern British History www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DQO295/a...

the vision | the execution (both from Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, 53.C.26, viewer.onb.ac.at/107A6269/ )

Reminder: today is the last day to respond to the UK government consultation to the cruel changes to immigration rules being proposed. Can take just 20 mins. I really recommend using Amnesty's guide to the survey because the survey is designed to catch you out media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Am...

anyway the consultation shuts tomorrow, one minute to midnight UK time: www.gov.uk/government/c... Amnesty have some good guidance here. Go on: media.amnesty.org.uk/documents/Am...

Has anyone studied how researchers and academics use library catalogues? I'm struggling to find any literature on researcher (not student) information needs and information seeking behavior. Any leads? My focus is rare books/archives/special collections, but I'm looking broadly right now.

Preparing for a local history talk next week, which means furiously looking up and drilling the pronunciation of half a dozen words. (Alas, a method that only works if you know what it is you don't know.)