I saw the IMC paper this was based on and spoke to Simon afterwards. Sadly any discussion of the charter material was clearly cut for length, but his argument that the Astronomer was Rodulf of Bourges also finds purchase in Aquitanian dating clauses: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2018/11/28/p...

New Name In Print post on the blog: my latest article is an important study of tenth-century Normandy and the micropolities it came from; but shepherding it into print was a bit of a weird time: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/12/03/n...

Late-period Bruce Springsteen is best Bruce Springsteen. Specifically, 'Devil's Arcade' may be his best song.

Explaining Richard the Justiciar: "He broke a lot of norms, also bishops"

Can anyone help me out with an opinion about the date of this hand from Vat. Reg. Lat. 755, fol. 13v?

My blog post with the ADAM network has now been published. It's about precarity, the future of small subjects, and communal approaches to academic work. I hope it will resonate with some. #IchBinHanna #KleineFaecher #SkandiRetten difficultmedieval.com/2025/10/23/h...

Turn Down For Wat

Almost 2 weeks in East Asia and I have yet to see a single "Nett her" sticker. The Baden-Würrtembergers need to step up their game...

Entirely accurate, but Contributor 1's comments made me think of something bothering me lately, and that's: God help you finding other work if you _are_ one of those people whose been sinking to the bottom of the academic demi-monde for ten years after your PhD: frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6691/

Update on the blog status: I am going on hiatus. There will still be posts from Sam, but not from me for the indefinite future. salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/09/11/h...

This week on the blog, I discuss whether the Normans were vikings. salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/07/31/w...

This week's Charter A Week: The Capetian dynasty's future is ensured with the coronation of its third king: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/07/29/c...

This week on the blog, we're back after a few weeks off, and @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social looks at the career of Heinrich Fichtenau and the impact of World War 2 upon it: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/07/24/t...

Sorry everyone, no blog post today. I've a major deadline on June 30th, so it's all hands on deck, and I'm out of buffer. This also means no Charter A Week next week, so the next post will be next Thursday, when @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social will be talking about Charles Martel in global context.

This week on the blog: @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social looks at the early history of Croatia: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/06/12/t...

Last week on the blog: on the motif of shining light in praise poetry and the question of the poverty of Carolingian ideology: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/06/05/t...

For those of you waiting with baited breath, this worked! Big thanks to Dr Pecksmith!

This week's Charter A Week: a prose writer turns his hand to diplomatic composition: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/06/03/c...

This week on the blog, @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social offers some advice on how to choose a History PhD programme, should you wish to do such a silly thing: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/29/h...

Update: I emailed York library, who confirmed they do not have it...

Does anyone know about a 2020 PhD thesis from York by one R.A. Smith entitled "A Study of the Contested Practice of Ruler Praise at the Court of Charles the Bald"? I've just seen it cited in an article, but otherwise it doesn't seem to exist.

This week's Charter A Week: bishops and comital rights at Beauvais: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/27/c...

This week on the blog: erm, pretty much just thinking out loud, I'm afraid; but perhaps you might find it interesting? salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/22/w...

This week's Charter A Week: Royal diplomatic in Brittany, and reinforcing the authority of the sort-of-kings-who-once-were: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/20/c...

This week, @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social looks at a world in flux on the eastern frontier of the Carolingian world: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/15/d...

Alright, this is a question which has come up between me and my American spouse. If you are a native speaker of British English, to which crop does "corn" refer?

This week on the blog: liturgical resonances in charters and what this can tell us about political thought: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/08/o...

This week's Charter A Week takes us to eleventh-century Saumur, where competition to became the new abbot is fraught and prices to be paid are high: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/06/c...

This week on the blog, @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social does... well, exactly what it says on the tin: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/05/01/c...

This week's translated text: kingship, empire, and Rome seen through the eyes of someone outside the mainstream Carolingian tradition of political thought: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/29/t...

This week on the blog: more visions of the afterlife, this time from Hincmar of Rheims; and if you thought some other visions of Hell were on the nose, boy, does Hincmar have some blunt messages to convey: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/24/t...

Day 1 at a liturgy conference and I really should be in bed, but following up my blog post on Odo of Cluny and kingship (salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/27/c...), some digging reveals that if the relevant royal diploma (D RR 27) doesn't come from the litany it's doing a *damn* good impression!

This week's Charter A Week: Richard of Saint-Vanne warns you about going to Hell, and what you (and the count of Flanders) need to do about it: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/22/c...

This week on the blog: @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social shows us the money (well, the Saffarid emirate's money, anyway...): salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/17/%...

This week's Charter A Week: Pons of Gévaudan and comital status in Auvergne and its environs: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/15/c...

This evening, I've been listening to different versions of 'Willie O'Winsbury' and... why are they all so slow and mournful? It's a joke song! It's a joke song *and* the punchline is "<hmmm> no, yeah, I deffo would"!

This week on the blog: thinking about Late Carolingians thinking about kingship (I'm so jet-lagged) salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/10/r...

This week on the blog, @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social examines one Carolingian diplomat and his account of internal Danish politics: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/03/t...

When a just-a-face guy has but one winking eye That's emoji

This week's source translation: a tenth-century Carolingian sermon gives advice for life and politics to... well, everyone. salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/04/01/t...

Have had 2 different conversations in the last 3 weeks with medievalists of my own broad demographic and it has circled round to one thing: in general terms, we'd like Redwall but with more coherent worldbuilding. Specifically (independently for all three) we want a _Gesta abbatum Redvallenisis_

This week on the blog: a plea to consider more carefully the political context of the work of Odo of Cluny, especially the _Vita Geraldi_, using the example of kingship: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/27/c...

I like spicy beef jerky, I do. But in the UK the market biltong stalls I usually go to have a tendency to overegg the pudding - as in, "Bloody Hell, That's Spicy" biltong will have a pleasant kick - and it's hard adapting to the fact that the US apparently doesn't.

This week's Charter A Week: lots and lots of Aquitanian charters, as regional hegemony becomes more real: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/25/c...

This week on the blog, @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social politely asks: please, stop citing Edward Gibbon. salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/20/n...

This week's source translation: the _Acts of the Pontiffs of Le Mans_, a major source for the history of ninth-eleventh century Maine. Featuring 'feudal violence' a century early, stupid bishops, and a bishopess: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/18/s...

This week on the blog: when did counts of Flanders become counts *of Flanders*? Was there a generational revolution in 1035? Was I pipped to the post by a German from the 1950s? salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/13/b...

In this week's Charter A Week, the Normans are getting up to Shenanigans at the Mont-Saint-Michel salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/11/c...

This week on the blog: @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social looks at memories of Charlemagne in the abbey of Saint-Pons near Nice: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/06/n...

This week's source translation: a guide to the Frankish material in the Canterbury Letter Book (BL Cotton Tiberius A XV): new translations, a guide to existing ones, and a discussion of what they can tell us about cross-Channel diplomacy: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2025/03/04/s...