Stupendous stuff from @samleggs22.bsky.social - meta analysis of human strontium and oxygen stable isotope data from southern Britain in 2nd half of 1st Millennium AD. Too rich to summarise but if your are into complex early medieval mobility, this one’s for you. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

If you're not watching the cheetah cub cam, what are you even doing?

Farewell 2025 - you were a year rich in challenges and rewards. I lived in more countries in the last twelve months than most people will in a lifetime, and everywhere I went I was astonished by the beauty of the world and grateful for the kindness of its inhabitants.

Excessive modernism - departments unbalanced towards the study of modern history - is the crop-blight of history departments and has long been so. Modern history and modernists are valuable and important, of course, but the ratios have long since skewed absurdly in favor of modern history.

Oh, when Americans kept telling me I was wrong about the clocks going back, and refusing to accept I’m British as a reason

So this is a more interesting question than a lot of people give it credit for "Yemen" is a signifier whose meaning has shifted a lot over the last 200 years. Even today, some Southern separatists no longer want to refer to themselves as "South Yemen," but "South Arabia" 1/x

Utopia was one of the best shows I’ve ever seen and I’m still pissed off it didn’t get a third series.

Yeah this is a good point - it's very small numbers of people as a portion of the country which is great, except for some reason our media and political class have decided that they are objectively the most important segment of the electorate and must be appeased at all costs.

Back in Èze

I’m now happily picturing a Thursday Murder Club book featuring Charlemagne, Justinian and Alaric among the suspects.

December buys. (I think I will take a break from book buying after this. Hopefully, I can bring my unread count to 350 by 2026 end). Books by @profgabriele.com , @lollardfish.bsky.social , @gevemac.bsky.social , @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social and others.

I assume they were drinking this?

I always tell students if you ask a good question the article will write itself

Interesting new piece on the Saxon rebellion against Henry IV. doi.org/10.1080/0304...

Seems a bit harsh…

I used to be very dismissive of round-robin letters at Christmas but this year I thought I would send one myself. So, anyway, here’s my lookback at 2025!

In addition to the inherent value of studying warfare in history, it also acts as a great point of entry into other topics for students. Modules on the vikings are a classic gateway drug for getting students hooked on early medieval history.

Where we send you if we catch you inferring future events on the basis of resemblance to past occurrences. Or, at least, where we've sent people so far.

It is time for the ultimate Christmas movie

As a pre-Christmas treat, allow me to explain the true significance of the famous Lady and the Unicorn tapestries at the @museecluny.bsky.social, which is the story of the unicorn's increasing disaffection with its career as a standard-bearer.

The manuscripts catalogue at the British Library is back online! www.roger-pearse.com/weblog/2025/... @ccockburn.bsky.social

Just learned that St Erik’s father was named Jedvard and I can now only assume he looked like this:

The complete Bayeux Tapestry has finally been released and proves that Bishop Odo had absolutely nothing to do with the illegal Norman invasion of England.

A new publication with Hugh implications for Capetian studies! #medievalsky

Pleased to announce my latest article is in print, courtesy of the fine people at _Reading Medieval Studies_! It's an analysis of two of the canonical texts from the time of Hugh Capet's accession, and why they are not all that they seem... salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/12/20/n...

Oh my god…

I have a weird question for the #bird people on here. Do you think someone could tell that a book was pooped on specifically by a sparrowhawk (or perhaps hawks generally) just from the feces? I'm looking at a 16th c. case where witnesses claim books were pooped on specifically by sparrowhawks!

NEW! Open access co-authored essay on the Corpus of Early #Medieval Latin #Medicine and some things we have learned. Enjoy! #medievalsky brill.com/view/journal...

In further examples of a good copy editor saving me from myself, a note pointing out that a sentence I’d written was confusing because I’d neglected to account for the world being round 🌏

Reconstruction of a pair of shoes - new, unworn, 'a spare pair for the afterlife' - from Sutton Hoo mound 1 by Marquita Volken from Alexandra Makin's brilliant blog. alexandramakin.com/2021/10/01/e... Article: @antiquaries.bsky.social Journal 2021 doi.org/10.1017/S000...

One for the early medieval/Merovingian nerds: Happy to receive a copy of Dáibhí's 2023 Jennifer O'Reilly Memorial Lecture, in which he argues that the name Rath Melsigi, the Irish monastery where Ecgberct (d. 719) settled after the plague of 664 according to Bede, derives from 'M[á]el-Sigi'... 1/3

There must be a German word for the experience of sending yourself an email, then getting an email notification and thinking "ooh I wonder who that's from".

Being “of the same nature as” rather than “of like nature to” mainstream pop…

Intriguing note on an essay I'm marking.

“You can’t expect that after a poor fellow has written a book he should also understand it.” (my current read, by Giovanni Guareschi, 1950).

Perfection

MEN! Do you love marzipan? Are you worried that it’s not macho enough for your rugged masculinity? Do we have the solution for you!

—I’ve been asked to baptise the King of Spain’s daughter —Infanta? —No, holy water as usual. Weird thing to ask honestly

Me realising I’ve written ‘strong and stable’ three times on the same page.

Learned today that “Galápagos” comes from a Spanish word for tortoise, meaning that “Galápagos Tortoise” is, in fact, a tortology

The internet has just reminded me of one of my favourite academic article titles from Gesta 49 (2009).

"Charlemagne's Dream" is coming (just not quite yet). #medieval #carolingians #apocalypse

A classy Christmas season to all of ye!

For #FindsFriday the gilt & niello silver mounts from Östra Påboda, Söderåkra, Sweden, clearly Carolingian sword-belt mounts that have been converted into ornaments. See their originally use in a detail of the Vivian Bible, produced in Tours in the 840s. Images: SHM / gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/b...

Very sad that I felt I had no choice but to resign from The Infinite Monkey Cage - a victory for the transphobes and other bigots - I did it because so much of the media has chosen to believe the kind and empathetic people are a fiction - they are real and so often unrepresented.

This week I wrote about the paradoxical nature of royal heirs: both dangerous but not guaranteed to actually become king. Why are moments of succession so politically dangerous? #medievalsky

The e-book version is already available, including my chapter on dodgy Carolingian priests, Simon on Carolingian coins and many other great things: brill.com/display/titl...

Stop press! I have a new entry in the “worst medieval attempt to draw an elephant” competition! 🐘