Shots fired at the Umayyads here by Richard L. Smith.

In literary analysis, if you find a new way to read a text that is interesting and consistent within that text, but, you know, is not the author's intent or physical reality - well the author is dead and you've done great scholarship. In history...well that's just called 'being wrong.'

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

The thing about the Wolf case is that it’s the kind of mistake it would be understandable for a casual researcher to make - I’ve seen it often with the Chinese equivalents - but the book was her PhD and it was central to her thesis! It had to make it past multiple levels of people.

This is, quite simply, an abnegation of one’s own personal humanity. The willing embrace of death over life is the epitome of MAGA politics.

Bonne Pâques, as they say in Normandy.

in all earnestness you have a "make a stranger feel good" button on every tweet you read and hitting it a lot, in my experience, papers over a lot of the problems of interpretation that are otherwise inherent to text communication online

This is a great book which I’d very much recommend!

Went on an accidental rant about this the other day when I heard about [redacted innovative pedagogy thing someone was doing]. Literally said ‘I think some people’s pedagogy is *too* creative… have you considered standing up and speaking knowledgeably about your expertise in an interesting way’

Perhaps an unpopular take, but I hate it when MPs are described as out of touch. They meet a greater variety of different people than 99% of the population, often in order to hear their complaints. They think far harder about issues than ordinary voters do.

Meanwhile, on the moon...

“Now to take a big sip of water and check what Republican evangelicals believe.”

I’m not going to argue against using tools to expand your capacity - remember random ideas, talk stuff through as if you were having a conversation with yourself, etc. - but writing is inseparable from actually thinking and arguing, they’re not different things you can automate

Sorry but you are way too humanities brained if you think space colonization is problematic because earth colonization was often accompanied by bad stuff. There are no people on the moon. The bad things involving colonization were the things they did to people living there. There are no people there

Thanks to @michael-marshall.bsky.social for this great write up of our new response piece in @newscientist.com! #Skystorians #MedievalSky

Pleased and honoured to say I'm starting a Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowship at the Institute of Art in the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw today. So here I am with the lady herself.

An article last year claimed that tree-ring data shows a link between drought and late Roman conflicts such as the "Barbarian Conspiracy" of 367. We show problems with such claims and appeal for interdisciplinary palaeoclimatic research to respect historical method. link.springer.com/article/10.1...

This is democracy manifest! www.theguardian.com/music/2026/m...

The Saxony-Anhalt State Museum of Prehistory welcomes you, real fuckin' sexy like you want www.landesmuseum-vorgeschichte.de/en/

couldn't come up with better PR for transgenders than "underground transgender mafia successfully heisted 12 tonnes of Kitkats"

I am pleased to share that I have signed a contract with Cambridge University Press to write “The End of Roman Britain and the Arrival of the Saxons,” which I have been approached to write by the editors of their series “Cambridge Elements in the Late Antique World”.

I published an article on canon law in Norway from the missionary time to the early 14th century. It is in Norwegian, which I cannot write, but they translated it. issuu.com/nasjonalbibl...

‘This from the outset the quality and spirit of satire blends with the historian’s style…’

A Medieval Coptic translator was confronted with a dilemma: the Pericope Adulterae (John 7:53-8:11) is not attested in his exemplar. He visited archives in Cairo & Damascus to collect its versions in Coptic, Syriac, Greek, &Arabic. what did he find? Join his facinating journey in this new article

Gold bracteate dating to c. AD 500 from Fyn/Funen, Denmark 🪙 Migration Era bracteates were inspired by Late Roman coins and medallions. The runic inscription on this *may* read: houaR laþu aaduaaaliiu a[lu] The High One [Óðinn?]. I invite / invitation ? ? My 📷 DR BR42 @nationalmuseet.dk

Every sentence brings something new to the madness. Stick it on CEEFAX.

we call this the value of the humanities

Scientists Confirm Remains of Medieval Emperor Otto the Great www.medievalists.net/2026/03/scie... #medieval #history #Germany

This is a really excellent idea that is extremely valuable!

The Social History of a Medieval Fish Weir c.600-2020 by the always-worth-reading Tom Pickles. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

Delighted to say I started a new post at Cambridge at the start of March. I'm based at the Faculty of Divinity and Clare Hall, working on forgery, memory, and landscape in the Crowland Abbey registers. The post is kindly supported by the Nigel Burn fund and Lincoln Record Society

Suddenly remembered that I once wrote a blog post about a time a superpower attacked a smaller enemy and it turned into a miserable stalemate in which everyone suffered until peace was made. Can’t think why it’s now on my mind. #medievalsky salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2023/05/04/p...

The IHR's guide to its Monumenta Germaniae Historica collections (@monumenta.bsky.social) is a superb introduction for students of medieval German and European history. #medievalsky

This article by Irene García Losquiño looks fascinating! #vikings #medievalsky onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

"We have no servants: we have no dominion over men, who are just like we are. Besides, it is cruel to press a man into slavery whom nature has decreed to be our brother, and who has been created by the same heavenly father as we are." -apocryphal reply of Dindimus the Brahmin to Alexander the Great

Intriguing! www.bbc.com/sport/footba...

Just been tipped off about the kind words for my book in @stephenkb.bsky.social’s newsletter for the FT. I entirely agree with his praise for @princetonupress.bsky.social, who were terrific throughout.

Job Claxon Alert! Senior Lecturer in Modern Greek & Byzantine Studies at University of Sydney.

Great read! Was particularly struck by the bit on using the first person: "Any history work could lift the veil and do this, but few do. In fact, shortly before I wrote the book, I submitted an article to Renaissance Quarterly in which, when commenting on an element of the historians’ practice,

Today and tomorrow (March 24-25), the three highly fragile sleds from the Oseberg burial are being moved into the new Museum of the Viking Age - a very carefully planned process. #Vikingtidsmuseet @kult-hist-museum.bsky.social www.vikingtidsmuseet.no/english/news...

This is the most important content of the day. #elephant

I belatedly come across this recent article by Claire Burridge, showing how exotic medicinal ingredients arrived in the early medieval west for the first time in the post-Roman period: worth a read. hopp.uwpress.org/content/67/1...

I'm very excited that you all can now read about Itinerant Rule in the Holy Roman Empire from 919-1519 in the @ajpseditor.bsky.social! Thank you @claranw.bsky.social, @andrejkokkonen.bsky.social and Jørgen Møller for a great collaboration! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

This article on medieval itinerant rulership (Ottonian, Salian, Staufen), previously available as a preprint, is now published. You can also view the itineraries themselves on a fun accompanying website carlmc.shinyapps.io/hre-itinerar...

Just dropped: @richardpurkiss.bsky.social on thegns in tenth- and eleventh-century England. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Godzilla is attacking London and you must summon a British kaiju to defeat them. Who are you choosing?

Hi, political scientist here. Did you know we have an extensive body of research and theory that says if people believe you will violently betray them, they are less likely to enter into an agreement with you? I swear to God I have a real, non-bullshit job.

medievalists should be more concerned about scholarship appearing from political scientists who work on modern subjects, who decide to try out methods (especially but not exclusively quantitative) on the premodern past WITHOUT at least including a medieval historian on the team. #medievalsky