You know what makes your day? Receiving the author copies of your book at home! It's genuinely great to hold it finally in my hands, ink on paper and real weight. If you'd like a copy, the code BB135 gets you 35% off all formats when buying from boydellandbrewer.com. I’m positively chuffed✨

Original thirteenth-century pilgrim canteen found in Brindisi, southern Apulia. I am sure it contained only the least sinful of refreshments.

If you ask my favourite spot in a library, it has to be the temporary storage. This is where books pile up waiting (im)patiently for their place. No shelves yet, no topic categories, no genres. There is only a natural stratification of discovery. Here curiosity leads and the unexpected finds you.

And for graduate students wanting to edit Latin texts we have a specialist training at London International Palaeography Summer School 2026. #MedievalSky 👇 ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

Very sad news. Professor Stephen Baxter was a remarkable scholar and I will always be grateful for the opportunity he gave me when he interviewed me for the MA in Medieval History at KCL in 2014. That moment set me on the path to my life in the UK and my career in research. May he rest in peace.

It is with deep sadness that the Master and Fellows of St Peter’s College share news of the death of Professor Stephen Baxter, Fellow and Tutor in Medieval History. Our full tribute will be shared soon. https://ow.ly/cy8J50Y0yrB

Sometimes, the devil is in the details. When scanning this book from 1531, something went wrong badly. Not one page is complete, only nonsense scans. This is #bookhistory too. A story of mistakes and #digitization gone wrong.

High quality doodles at the end of this 13 c. manuscript from Piacenza (London, British Library, Harley 3678). Here is a fine example of medieval good boi to help go through your Monday.

Munby Fellowship in Bibliography based @theul.bsky.social in Cambridge - closes on 1 February, so still time to apply.

This 👀: I run a class on late-medieval political satire and this ⬇️ is going straight in there. Visual literacy has always been important and using animals in images to underscore the abuses of the world is perennial...

Just back in Cambridge and glad to see that certain things don't change 🍂🦆

Sometimes, when browsing through a good library, the books you are looking for may have a history of their own or can contain fragments of tangential stories, often intimate ones. A brief 🧵

This is *positiv(ist)ly* cool.

This is (also) what happens when one stops making assumptions about a text and, especially, about who may have written it.

The serpent head of the Oseberg Viking ship, carved in 820, and shown for the first time to the public in the Oslo Historical Museum

There is much to look forward to in the next issue of @parergon.bsky.social. I'm keeping my eyes peeled.

🧪Hold on to your urine flasks, there are only a few weeks left to visit Curious Cures! 📍 Open until 6 December 2025 at the University Library 🔗Book your FREE ticket: https://loom.ly/kVqsPRY Music by Vlad Bakutov from Pixabay

The golden age of diversity and democracy in Oz.

Looks like an exciting read from @puc-ed.bsky.social. The Colloque de Cerisy always gathers stellar scholarship, and this book seems like it’s going to be a banger. Can’t wait to dive in. #medievalsky

📣 Next week we are delighted to host a book launch for Local Priests in the Latin West, 900-1050, by Alice Hicklin, Steffen Patzold, @jbwaagmeester.bsky.social & @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social, who will be joined by John Arnold, Julia Barrow & Conrad Leyser. Weds 19 Nov, 5.30pm, King's. All welcome!

Here is an example of what a politics of temporality looks like in practice and why it is relevant today. It's fascinating that modern Iranian nationalism, which once suppressed its pre-Islamic past, now celebrates the pagan king Shapur I as a national symbol. theconversation.com/a-roman-empe...

@kawulf.bsky.social wrote this piece in April. But if you haven't read it yet, take some time to do so now: scholarlykitchen.sspnet.org/2025/04/02/t...

Spent the morning at @theul.bsky.social with this remarkable volume from 12 c. Worcester. A fine example of medieval knowledge aggeagation for the community. It also comes with impressive decorations, which is always a plus.

So… I just learned that the Vlad III Țepeș, also known to later legend as Dracula, may be buried in Naples, Italy. 1) Is this true or clickbait? 2) Should I be worried for Neapolitans? A short🧵 between history and fiction.

What a piece. One of the best proofs that Cato was right when he said 'Rem tene verba sequentur'. Also, next time they tell me that AI must be integrated into literally everything, I'll say that this is a "bathetically unscholarly corporate-sponsored piece of risible chaff".

We're delighted to digitally contribute to @theul.bsky.social Curious Cures project Curator James Freeman highlights some of way Middle English medical writings have survived to us: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk?p=30906 One more month to catch the physcial exhibition, do not miss it!

Proofs done. Book imminent. Panic level: yes.

Nothing to see here? Well, this is a slow moving 🧵 for #skystorians and others about #eyeglasses of the past, about how to read in the past, where to buy eyeglasses, and how to do with them in general. The hashtag is #HowToDoWithGlassesInThePast Let's roll.

Can something be equally exciting and terrifying to watch? Yes.

What a way to launch Project DEGE at UBC with a three-day deep dive into the digital edition of the Generale Historia in stunning Granada! Here are a few glimpses from the Gothic cathedral and the UNESCO-listed Albaycín, the maze-like old Arab quarters of Granada.

Peter Thiel discusses One Piece and the Antichrist, thereby single-handedly enraging both One Piece and Christian eschatology experts. That's quite impressive.

László Krasznahorkai wins a long overdue Nobel for Literature. Rosenbaum essay on Sátántangó is a great analysis of how the novel and Bela Tarr's 1994 film test how history, its moral implications, and the exp. of time can be told. Controversial opinion, but difficulty can be its own form of beauty.

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Today is the feast of St Francis, one of the most celebrated figures of the Christian tradition and a turning point in the medieval West. A radical and poet, a mystic yet deeply engaged with his society, now patron saint of Italy and of ecology. Here’s a look at some of the MSS associated with him.

We've updated our three BlueSky starter packs for historians. Our principal list now includes details of 130+ societies and networks, based in the UK and Ireland, that advance the study, research and promotion of history go.bsky.app/AZaYQDd Please let us know if there are gaps. #Skystorians 1/2

"If anything made her a little intimidating in later life, it was her absolute, uncompromising refusal to pretend to be anything she was not, or to like anything that she did not, for the sake of pleasing others. She was entirely unapologetic about being herself and about what mattered to her".

Hwæt! 🐉 Ever wondered what the epic poem Beowulf sounds like spoken in Old English? #NationalPoetryDay

This year marks 1000 years since the foundation of the Abbey of Cava dei Tirreni (1025)! Holy Trinity at Cava was one of southern Italy’s most important Benedictine abbeys in the 11th–12th centuries and home of one of the largest libraries in the region. A millennium history deserves some 🎉

My book is now £14.99 with this discount! Cheaper than a cheeky Nandos!

Here we Goooo! I haven’t been able to post about this until we went live, so today I’m posting highlights from the Les Enluminures Text Manuscripts Fall Update! This is our annual Big September Issue.

Now in #paperback, The Emperor and the Elephant by @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social is a new history of Christian-Muslim relations in the #Carolingian period that provides a fresh account of events by drawing on Arabic as well as western sources. Learn more: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb...

Marc Bloch will be admitted to the Pantheon in Paris! The date for the "Panthéonisation" is set for 16 June 2026. Meanwhile, @sorbonneparis1.bsky.social has launched a website to keep track of the many conferences to celebrate the event. Some of them start this month. marcbloch.pantheonsorbonne.fr

The much-anticipated news is now here. I am very excited to announce that my book, soon out with York Medieval Press, is now available for pre-order! Hats off to @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social and the awesome Mont-Saint-Michel design team for the cover! boydellandbrewer.com/book/robert-...

Why am I not surprised that a medievalist managed to write the most ambitious megadungeon in D&D history? It's a over 1,100 pages long adventure set in Byzantium (where else?) www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/3...

More manuscripts are coming to the British Library's online site www.bl.uk/collection/d... And, erm, how can I say this nicely? If you have a cheeky script that downloads images from the site, please build in some delays so that you don't kill the servers. Play nice, innit!

To all academics, please read the licence terms of the platforms and online services you use most.

After eons of silence, I’ve finally escaped the X swamp which had become inhospitable to the point I stopped interacting. Anyways, I'm here, I'm back (which may be read with Schwarzenegger's voice in Terminator), and I bring news. More to follow soon.