A PhD student at Stanford noticed her classmates were asking Al to write their breakup texts. So she ran a study. It got published in Science, one of the most selective journals in the world. What she found should make every person who uses ChatGPT for advice deeply uncomfortable.

Spent yesterday with the #Roman invasion of York. Quick threw together a version of a current obsession: a Late-Roman/Byzantine ensemble from 4th c. CE which consists of a belted dalmatic with a narrow tunic dress underneath, featuring woven decorative trims or tapes. 1/3 #livinghistory #eboracum

"Would you have been against the industrial revolution?" is not the gotcha that you think it is. IR led to an era of unchecked corporate greed, robber barons, immense wealth inequality, environmental disasters, & worker deaths. It was only reined in by union power and government regulation 1/2

As a historian, watching current events can help w/ interpretation Sometimes, people from hundreds of years ago did stuff that makes no rational sense from a modern, educated perspective Seeing people do similar idiotic things today helps me see that some people are just idiots

My no.1 inspo for LITTLE KINGDOMS I owe Thomas Williams a lot; he’s a great writer, and inspired me to research the Viking Age when I first read his Viking Britain in 2017, as a teenager. Very grateful that he reviewed my prev book FORGOTTEN VIKINGS, too

Heading to Buxton and the Peak District today Into the old kingdom of the Pecsætan… Time for a quick refresher before we leave;

The clear one is that one can perform expertise without even knowing or understanding what information that they've circulated. The entire circle can be simulated, as though one never even experienced their own utterance.

www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/... Catch me on the BBC from 2:18pm onwards!

Its #FrisianFriday, which means a celebration of the unsung middle-men (and women) of the Early Medieval Period The Frisians, as the foremost trading identity of their day, linked England to the Netherlands, Scandinavia, France, and Germany, long before the Viking Age Let us never overlook them!

A thread of my blogposts about Radbod for #FrisianFriday 1) A general introduction asking the basic questions and assessing what we can really know about Radbod. longhairedkingsblog.wordpress.com/2025/09/03/r...

I will be speaking on BBC radio Lincolnshire today at 1:45pm about viking activity in the Humberside / North Lincolnshire region

@maltonmuseum.bsky.social success! A lovely talk, and a lovely audience. Thank you for listening to LITTLE KINGDOMS

Open access publication klaxon! I was really honoured to be asked to write a response chapter in Communities, Connectivity and Complexity in Roman Britain. It is SO GOOD. www.barpublishing.com/book/communi...

Today!

Found a 1 star review of my first book the other day which read: ‘Never found so many ‘perhapses’ and ‘perhaps note’ in a history book’ Which I’m taking as a compliment, because its good to be doubtful, unsure, speculative, and tentative in our historical musings; I’m not an LLM…

Lads, Harry Hill is a legend

Net migration dropped from a peak of 944,000 in the year to March 2023 to 204,000 in the year to June 2025, according to government figures. (& due to drop further today) That's a statistic that Reform and its bastard son Restore don't tell their cult followers www.theguardian.com/world/2026/m...

I have a run of the journal of the Worcester Archaeological Society which I’d like to rehome for the cost of postage only (library of David Dumville) #archaeology #worcester please comment or email me at [email protected] if you’d like them (nb. Postage for the lot is £12 or less)

Today!

www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/2611165... Some lovely press about my upcoming lecture in Malton on the 21/5/26

Have you purchased tickets for our first lecture of the season? We will welcome @alexharvv.bsky.social to Malton Museum tomorrow, as he offers fascinating insights into Yorkshire in the ‘Dark Ages.’ Follow the link below or buy your tickets at the door. The lecture will commence at 7 pm!

In fact, I distinctly remember asking my supervisors about the pros and cons of IMC To distill their insight, it boiled down to never knowing if your paper will have a big audience or not, which limits potential learning opportunities, but even so, its a great avenue to strengthen public speaking

I first attended the IMC in 2023 through a late call, which I remember being hesitant about In the end I went, and presented about sceattas, which led to @amwillemsen.bsky.social inviting me to the 4th Dorestad Congress the year after, and @ccooijmans.bsky.social accepting me for an IMC 2024 panel

The Pictish army of Bridei son of Beli, king of Fortriu, defeated that of Ecgfrith son of Oswiu, king of the Northumbrians, #OTD in 685. northages.wordpress.com/2016/05/19/t...

Hey we're opening for subs for all genres for the next print issue June 1. Put it in your calendar. Fiction is capped at 500 subs and tends to fill fast. More details soon

All Google users when their search engine turns into a slopaganda machine

New blogpost, in which I ask one of the truly burning questions of early medieval studies and answer with a resoundingly equivocal "probably not". But you should read the post anyway. longhairedkingsblog.wordpress.com/2026/05/20/w...

You could just read scholarship before you cite it and only coauthor pieces with other people who do the same.

Hits different when you see your article in print Thanks to @souljaleonn.bsky.social for including me in this edited volume!

It went well!

Feeling a little heretical tonight (I’m lecturing inside a church)

King Alfred's bread cakes anyone? entry for 870 from Annals of Fulda; Reuter 1992 p.63

RAAAAAARGHHHH I LOVE READING CHRONICLES I LOVE TRANSLATING ANNALISTS OPINIONS AND INFERRING JUDGEMENTS BASED ON NARRATIVE PARABLES

I hear critical positions towards so-called «artificial intelligence» nowadays framed more and more as «rejectionism», and this is especially formulated as a critique of the left. The argument often goes something like this: Rather than seeing the potentials of AI, the left merely rejects it 1/

#MosaicMonday — Mosaic from the 6th century AD depicting the personifications of Rome, Gregoria, and Madaba (left to right), each shown as Tyche with a turreted crown, cornucopia, and cross. From the so-called Hippolytus Hall at Madaba (Jordan). The identity of Gregoria remains uncertain.

Y8 kid gave me a killer quote today in a lesson on the significance of migration to Britain’s historical development: ‘Migration has given us Britain’ I’d like to tattoo this on Nigel Farage’s head

Glad to see the proceedings of the conference on Languages and Identities in Early Medieval Western Europe published open access; and very grateful to the Navarre regional government for sponsoring both the event and the publication: www.siem-estella.es/uploads/file...

This is a very good article, and I’ve been lucky enough to have lots of interesting chats over the years with @shieldmaidenpdx.bsky.social about her work on this way of looking at the Viking Age - fascinating stuff

My wife: there’s no way he’ll find a way to shoehorn vikings into our trip to Venice, they never visited here Me with the rune-carved piraeus lions by the Arsenale:

King Alfred's bread cakes anyone? entry for 870 from Annals of Fulda; Reuter 1992 p.63

very happy to discover that I did not, in fact, delete my pdfs of Annales Bertiniani and Fuldenses in 2019

Every author is supposed to be responsible for every word in the manuscript, and that whoever chooses something to cite has to actually read it. It's not enough if a previous paper cited the reference for a similar statement, and a search preview claiming to be an relevant excerpt does not suffice.

My wife: there’s no way he’ll find a way to shoehorn vikings into our trip to Venice, they never visited here Me with the rune-carved piraeus lions by the Arsenale:

He looks soooo defeated lol

Today marks the feast day of St Brendan the Navigator. This is Mount Brandon, where he is said to have spent days fasting before setting off on his epic voyage. It is still a popular place of pilgrimage today. #ireland #SpéirGhorm

www.yorkpress.co.uk/news/2611165... Some lovely press about my upcoming lecture in Malton on the 21/5/26

Great paper from @benpohl.bsky.social Timely too, given the BM’s looming exhibit

Morning re-read of the vital 'Viking Paradigm in Early Med. History' by Alex Woolf: www.cambridge.org/core/service... Probably the most concise and thorough intro (8 pgs) on the use of the term 'Viking', and how it is unhelpful, you can reasonably find