I keep hearing that the Iranian regime's grip is weak, but the lesson from Justinian is that if you tell the security forces to murder the people who complain about you and they do it, maybe you're really not all that weak?

Empires are only as strong as their communication systems. If you're curious how the Romans in the ninth century operated a telegraph that sent messages across 700km from the frontier to Constantinople, the first part of my work on this is now on the Exeter Medieval Studies blog. Link in next post

I will be giving a paper at the History of Liturgy seminar at the IHR in London at 5.30pm on Monday, 16 Feb. Link for in-person and Zoom registration in the first comment. 👇

How to write historical GIS: a: include the minimum technical detail that an expert needs to reproduce your work. Non-GIS reviewers complain it's not detailed enough b: fill 20pp explaining how everything works in detail. No space left for historical argumentation. Reviewers complain it's too long

The next History of Liturgy Seminar is in London @ihr.bsky.social on Monday 16 Feb 17.30. The award-winning @drkrisztinailko.bsky.social on The Augustinian Friars & their Liturgical Cult of Saint Augustine. In-person (chat! drinks! people!) or online: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/... #medievalsky

Proofs!

look, if we don't stand up for Canada Post, governments of the future will claim transit organizations need to be profitable, and hospitals need to be profitable, and schools need to be profitable, and they'll chop up as much of the public trust as they can and sell it to their friends for nothing.

Only a determined course of nation-building backed up with a nuclear arsenal will stave off the American threat. Carney will deliver neither, regardless of how tough he talks.

Now it is at the University of Calgary that Classics & Medieval studies are threatened. Please sign the petition : c.org/WrCPMhK2rm

Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more. Please consider signing and sharing this petition to help saving the major in Greek and Roman Studies and the major in Ancient and Medieval History at University of Calgary.

Send the Americanists and The Chief Enabler back to their hell south of the border.

Somewhere in the Pentagon right now a nameless logistics officer is furiously calculating how many overflowing port-a-potties fit in a C-5 in case Greenland is invaded and Germany decides to turn off the water and power at Ramstein. It will be the most emblematic airlift of our times.

With the first copy of The Sons of St Augustine!

To Wien! To the Institut für Mittelalterforschung!

Queens' JRF (@camhistory.bsky.social) @drkrisztinailko.bsky.social's new book, The Sons of St Augustine, challenges major assumptions about the medieval Catholic Church and early Renaissance. Read more about her publication on our website, and the Cambridge University press release.

Wild medieval saints! 🔥🔥🔥 Dragons and miraculously sprouting cherry twigs. An evil walnut tree growing above the tomb of Nero. For these and much more in my book, 'The Sons of St Augustine' (OUP), I am delighted to share the wonderful media release that Cambridge published this morning:

“The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.” He's not entirely wrong - that leadership has spent decades cosy-ing up the Americans, with predictably disastrous results.

Recently submitted an article on the eleventh century. Like all good things written on the eleventh century, it: 1: does not allude to Psellos; 2: does not cite Psellos; 3: does not even mention Psellos.

You always hear about how those pesky Turkish raiders ruined everything for Byzantium in the twelfth century, but when you put it on a map the reports of raiding tend to go both ways pretty equally. * Danishmendids not included. Non-descendants of Qutlamish sold separately.

Fascinating talk yesterday at UOttawa Dept. of Classics & Religious Studies / Conférence fascinante hier : Prof. Nick Hedley (SFU) on digital humanities research in Egypt / recherche en humanités numériques en Égypte. #ottawa #DigitalHumanities #AncientEgypt #EgypteAncienne #AncientBluesky

Book cover plan, now complete with the blurb on the back! 📕

This will come as a surprise to approximately no one, but Grokipedia's source for this is *me* and my article totally does not say that.

In 2023, I was a Visiting Fellow at @antrelclaottawa.bsky.social. Got to experience the department as a world class center for our discipline (especially Late Antiquity). University management now wants to axe their honours programme. Please consider signing and sharing this petition for support:

Back in the late twelfth century Al-Baghdadi saw your post about how ancient aliens built the pyramids and is embarrassed for you.

Shocking news from uOttawa: Greek & Roman Studies closed to new students without consultation. Teaching of ancient languages to end. Open letter coming soon - follow for how you can help. #DefendClassicsUOttawa #Ottawa #AncientHistory #SaveHigherEd #HigherEdCuts #AncientGreek #Latin

I wrote something. Also made some maps for it. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

I dunno what you think, internet, but this 19th c. printer in Naples had a very pleasing Greek typeface.

Book launch TOMORROW at @bplmaps.bsky.social!!! 🏠

Always good to hear some positive-ish things about a weird computational spatial analysis paper one wrote for a volume on Nikephoros II. deremilitari.org/2025/10/geor...

"... Canada’s billionaires are siphoning off for themselves an ever-larger share of the nation’s wealth, at the expense of the rest of us." Exciting to see a new @lindamcquaig.bsky.social book on the horizon! www.dundurn.com/books_/t2211...

Just a quick reminder that we are still eagerly awaiting your paper proposals for the next IMC! ⏰🎓👇 @imc-leeds.bsky.social

Burg on the Berg in Bergland

Very excited to spread the news that @ryan1992reading.bsky.social and I are organising a session for the Leeds IMC next year on political culture in the High Middle Ages! Please drop us a message if interested and share widely.

For the EU, this should be a very urgent matter of national security. All EU member states should build on Denmark's wise strategy to phase out Microsoft products

"...every single one of these concessions to Trump—from axing the Digital Services Tax to slashing environmental regulations for extractive industries to massively increasing military spending—is also a concession to the corporate agenda of the Business Council and its members..."

Sounds good. "They've warned that a single lawsuit raised by three authors over Anthropic's AI training now threatens to "financially ruin" the entire AI industry if up to 7 million claimants end up joining the litigation and forcing a settlement." arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...

Canada has bent over backwards to meet Trump's demands—on defence spending, border security, taxation, and foreign policy—yet the tariffs keep coming. If free trade means surrendering sovereignty with no return, maybe it's time to walk away.

"Bill C-2 isn’t just a domestic surveillance bill. It’s a Trojan horse for U.S. law enforcement—quietly building the pipes to ship Canadians’ private data straight to Washington." www.eff.org/deeplinks/20...

A gigantic stack of copyedits to read through over the weekend!

A semi-serious question: why are medieval lions moustachioed?

Beyond just the exciting news about the book, Krisztina has joined Bluesky so you should give her a follow, and doubly-so if you're interested in Italy, chess, or the Global Middle Ages!

Here to spread the word that my book, 'The Sons of St Augustine', is now on OUP's site. 📕🎉 Forthcoming in November/December 2025: global.oup.com/academic/pro...

When did Bertha of Sulzbach die, the first empress of Manuel I Komnenos? And why should you care? The answer is it matters a great deal because diplomacy with the Kingdom of Jerusalem, the Principality of Antioch, and the Sultanate of Rum hinge on it. For more: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

The experience of an eleventh-century English abbot, or just a normal day at Rome Termini? You decide.

Was discussing the enshittification of everything, but then opened the Wikipedia page on Manuel I Komnenos and recalled that some things were just always terrible.

If your in-house citation style does not include journal issue numbers, do not pass go, do not collect $200, go straight to jail and reflect on your crime.

“The joke goes that Canada is three companies in a trench coat.” @nolore.bsky.social's CORPORATE CONTROL takes a hard but necessary look at all the ways Canadian democracy is challenged by the country’s most powerful corporations. Get a copy here: buff.ly/m7PFzGS   #Booksky #Canada #Politics

Download TR 25.05 from our website: www.tamriel-rebuilt.org/downloads/ma... Or from Morrowind Nexus: www.nexusmods.com/morrowind/mo... Release Trailer: youtu.be/i7Ufn_da_-c

First time buying a used book that happens to have the ex libris of a famous scholar on the inside.