Pretty short post this week about my new article, including an action shot of me presenting at my very first conference all the way back in 2018 #medievalsky

#JobKlaxon We are looking for a permanent Lecturer in Global Medieval History to join us at @leedsims.bsky.social! Applications due 1 June. Happy to talk to anyone interested in an informal capacity. If you are in Kalamazoo, find me at #ICMS! #leedsmedievalstudies jobs.leeds.ac.uk/vacancy.aspx...

This is a really exceptional opportunity: a studentship funding an MA followed by a PhD. For students from underrepresented or lower-income backgrounds. Apply to do the wonderful MA @memsunikent.bsky.social or equivalent MA at KCL: www.komldsp.org.uk/ma-scholarsh.... Deadline: 12 June

The proceedings from last summer's medieval 'semana' in Estella-Lizarra, on Languages and Identities in the Early Medieval West, have now been published (OA)! Feat. excellent studies by @francescatinti.bsky.social, @elvabjohnston.bsky.social, @hwaetspur.bsky.social, and many others not on here.

Just got this into the library - really looking forward to reading it! (And fingers crossed for a paperback soon!)

For further context: almost everyone in the Faculty of Arts is at risk of redundancy. Music, Modern Languages & American & Canadian Studies courses to close completely. History will not close but staff numbers will be significantly reduced. This is what 'right-sizing' looks like, apparently.

If anyone in government has a few minutes to run the country in between plotting leadership challenges, could they please cast their eye over the devastation of Higher Education in the UK. www.theguardian.com/education/20...

Thousands of University of Nottingham staff told they are at risk of redundancy

📢JOB ALERT 📢 We are looking to appoint a F/T open-ended Lecturer in Late Medieval / Early Modern History (1400-1700) @lancasteruni.bsky.social. This is an amazing opportunity that we are very proud to announce, so please spread the word far and wide! www.hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Scary diagram on how much of our daily lives would fall apart if somehow we were cut off from US tech. Tech sovereignty and resilience is going to be costly! www.ft.com/content/4c3a...

Applications are now invited for the Society's 2026 Funded Book Workshops - for historians currently writing a 2nd or 3rd monograph bit.ly/4uwep8C. Grants enable authors to hold a day workshop with upto 6 specialist readers to discuss a MS in detail before submission to a publisher #Skystorians

Ambrose of Milan begins to write - image taken from Josh Timmerman's new book on patristic authority in the Carolingian age, reviewed by @jkeskiah.bsky.social: "this book is indispensable to historians of the early Middle Ages" onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/EZV9CG...

AI: Ignoring the AI elephants in the room weakens the case for universities. Analysing & dealing with the unknown & the uncertain is a key thing academics and students do in HEIs: it's OK that we don't know the solution to the 'problem'. It's not OK to ignore it, or dismiss it all as 'slop'. 10/x

NEW from me: many of our universities are now in a dying fall. A new global-national-regional-local split is opening up, which could choke off progress on almost all the Government's plans. Do they have a plan? Nope, nothing, not a clue. 👇 isrf.org/blog/whats-t...

Help, #MedievalSky! There's an opening on our #IMC2026 Panel on Abbatial Identities within and without the Cloister. Do you like abbots/abbesses or another kind of 'monastic leader', and are you having second thoughts about skipping the IMC this year? Let me know and we might have a session for you!

Faire de l’historiographie (de l'histoire du Moyen Âge) avec les méthodes numériques : socmed.hypotheses.org/923 Un billet de Nicolas Perreaux, Sébastien de Valeriola et Nicolas Ruffini-Ronzani ( @nicolasperreaux.bsky.social ; @sdevaleriola.bsky.social ; @nruffini.bsky.social ).

A new study based on the bibliographic tool Regesta Imperii Opac, @regestaimperii.bsky.social, which reveals that the international field of medieval history has been growing steadily by about 2.5% a year, doubling every 27.5 years. If you sometimes feel you can't keep up - yep, you can't.

France launches one-euro university meals for all students

Over the weekend I undertook the Carolingianist's pilgrimage to Campus Galli near Meßkirch, the experimental archaeology project begun in 2013 to build a monastic complex following the Plan of St Gall. Extraordinary work - it may take a century to complete! #medievalsky

What was it like being a Carolingian king in a post-Carolingian world: and how do charters help us understand? Find out on the new EME podcast, where @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social talks to @medievaljon.bsky.social about King Arnulf of East Francia #chartertastic rss.com/podcasts/ear...

📢Exciting Opportunities with ADHO! Please apply before 1 May 2026 More info: adho.org/positions/

Awesome to see this come out, congrats @medievaljon.bsky.social!

Are you interested in applying for European Research Council grants? Join us on 1 June at the British Academy for the ERC Reading Day – a fantastic opportunity to read past proposals and understand what made them successful. Find out more and register: https://bit.ly/42DFsD5

Post-Doc Mittelalter: bald wird vorausstl. eine Post-Doc-Stelle (A13, 100%) zum Mittelalter in Bonn ausgeschrieben. Die Stelle wird thematisch, zeitlich und räumlich offen sein, Bewerbungsschluss bereits Anfang Juni, Start vorausstl. September. Interessenten stellen sich gerne bereits darauf ein.

If you have or know any graduate students, do encourage them to attend this free webinar! I will be going over the grants offered at the MAA and providing tips. #medievalsky

Just out, on Carolingian holy war, by Matthew Bryan Gillis manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526193780/

How did family quarrels impact a ruler's divine rights to rule? In Issue 23, @eddiemeehan99.bsky.social explored the divides within the Carlolingian dynasty. Read on! 👇 www.epoch-magazine.com/post/early-m...

A good summary why UK HE has ended up in such a mess. I’d also add the growth of a managerial layer who refuse to take any responsibility for things they are responsible for; fall in available research funding, which wastes huge amounts of labour; and the pointless hamster wheel of REF! 🫠

This is good. Very light on the research side of the equation but more than sane and informed on the teaching side, including failure of marketisation and a recognition that ‘cheap’ subjects subsidise expensive one. Well worth reading.

Anyone interested in this set? it’s £400 including postage to UK on Abe books but happy to sell the set I have for £100 ‘Encyclopedia of Religion and Ethics’ 13 vols (1908-1926) #booksky #religion #ethics www.abebooks.co.uk/servlet/Book...

Price dropped to £50 as needs rehoming asap.

In a *new* post, I have pulled together the latest data on historians in UK universities and PhDs granted. The results are ... not great. Staff numbers have been mostly shrinking since 2019. PhDs have been roughly flat. 1/3. 🗃️ More info here: manyheadedmonster.com/2026/04/23/h...

Lecturer in Latin and Manuscript Studies at the University of Kent www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DRH997/l...

Join us Manchester for the Computational Humanities Research conference 2027, hosted by our Centre for Digital Humanities, Cultures, and Media! @ggrig.bsky.social @lukaszszulc.bsky.social @andreanini.com @uomsalc.bsky.social @digitaluom.bsky.social

Tory plan to redirect £6bn of R&D funds to defence slammed. Campaign for Science and Engineering raises alarm over proposal to stop UKRI funding “nonsense” subjects. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-p...

Ex-FST leader: ‘Not all politicians understand university funding’. Recently departed Foundation for Science and Technology chief executive Gavin Costigan questions UK system of research support. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-uk-c...

The Association for Computers and the Humanities (ACH) seeks a new Editor in Chief as well as an institutional host for @dhquarterly.bsky.social (DHQ). Initial expressions of interest are due by August 30th. See the CFP for more details: buff.ly/qpiypXq

Friday! The Toronto Old English Colloquium returns with Lindy Brady of Edge Hill University's "Multilingualism, Old English, and the Viking Age". RSVP to attend in person at CMS or virtually via Zoom, April 17, at 2:30 pm. uoft.me/TOEC2026 #oldenglish

I am once again asking

Exciting times for the study 11thC England: the 'lost' seal of Edward the Confessor has been rediscovered in the Archives nationales de France! #SkyStorians #MedievalSky

Hungary first became integrated into the Latin Christian network in the 11th c.: in this recent EME article, Pavol Hudáček explains how this process can be traced through religious donations. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/share/WNT5TR...

Some BTS shots from a piece for @thejohnrylands.bsky.social that went live today, to accompany the 'Lives and Literacy in Ancient Egypt' exhibition that opens at the University of Texas this month! Excited to see the exhibit when it comes to Manchester next year 😁 📸 The Eastern Blok

Some good news - a new issue of Early Medieval Europe has dropped! And it's a bumper issue, with six articles, not the usual five. Here's a quick thread on the delights awaiting you: 1/9

As we mourn the great Averil Cameron, I point you to her autobiographical talk from 2017: on being working class and female in Ancient History wcc-uk.blogs.sas.ac.uk/2017/05/22/s...

'The number of English language and literature academics fell by 8 per cent to 4,680 – among the largest decrease of all disciplines. And the number employed in modern languages dropped 7 per cent to 4,890. This is 17 per cent below peak levels in 2015-16.' 1/3

Database on vikings in Irish Chronicles AD 794-902 which was completed as part of my doctoral research (a looong time ago) www.celt.dias.ie/publications... #medievalsky #archaeology #spéirghorm

To be frank, History & Policy is struggling to find a precedent for this. But we’re waiting to hear back from Suetonius who’s promised us a policy paper.

If it can be torn down, it can be rebuilt even stronger.

'A New Interpretation of the Gosforth Cross' - Lecture given by our Prof @downham.bsky.social for the British Archaeological Association at the Society of Antiquaries of London, now available online: www.youtube.com/live/a2i3Dwr...

Folks! I'm teaching a one-day workshop for DMSI in Leeds. If you're already planning to attend the conference, consider sticking around for one more day to learn all about Manuscript Materiality in a Digital World. We'll look at manuscripts from Leeds' collections and then we'll talk digital!