I work on what most Americans might think is one of the most canonical over-studied places in European history: England in the Middle Ages. And yet almost every time I go to a library or archive I examine something that exists on that single book and has never been published. 3/n

And that’s because there are very wealthy people and organizations who fund the use of historical artifacts to advance research and promote hype for a given technology but no money whatsoever for the boring old process of transcription, translation, and editing. 2/n

I understand the excitement about technology “rediscovering lost texts.” I do, & I get the media hype. But I wish people knew that there are hundreds of thousands of “lost” texts just sitting in manuscripts in libraries, which have never been published outside of those single manuscripts. 1/n

My latest project, a sourcebook on Vikings in Britain and Ireland, has just gone to the copy-editor. It's due out April next year. Always a bit nervous/exciting when that happens #medievalsky

The crisis in UK higher education is worsening week by week — Exeter University is one of the best in the UK, with superb lecturers (and several You’re Dead To Me guests), but it’s planning massive job cuts in History, Archaeology, Classics — see the petition below to lend your voice in support

My book is now 53% off until tomorrow. In the UK, you can buy "It Could Lead to Dancing" for under £13 with the discount code "sgermaine" from @marenostrumgroup.bsky.social here: mngbookshop.co.uk/978150363812...

A friend suggested the title “Original Sin” for an academic book about… wait for it… the Hebrew letter ש. The publisher vetoed the title & it got called something like “The History of the Hebrew letter Sin”. But the acknowledgements still thanked her for the very witty title & she dined out on this

An amazing example of real world consequences!

📢ALBUM ANNOUNCEMENT: A TIME OF MINDING📢 Chris Hoban has been recording all the music he composed as a fellow on the @leverhulme.ac.uk project The Material Culture of Wills! Sign up here to be notified when the album is released: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F... Photo: Tom Hurley #EarlyModern 🗃️

New episode on medieval art with @eagatti.bsky.social ! We had a lovely conversation about the experience of medieval art and her fascinating work! open.spotify.com/episode/1zvK...

An exciting project to catalogue Charles #Darwin's personal library is underway! Learn about it in our latest blog: specialcollections-blog.lib.cam.ac.uk?p=32108

I’m delighted to see that the latest episode of the Multicultural Middle Ages podcast on ‘The Global Gyrfalcon’, hosted by @medivalist.bsky.social and myself, is now out! #medievalsky @mmapod.bsky.social www.multiculturalmiddleages.com/post/the-glo...

What’s your favourite glam rock band? Wrong answers only…

I know people like to joke about the lack of air conditioning in the UK, but I work in a listed building where we are not allowed to install AC. Some of my colleagues have been teaching on a summer school in minimum 35-degree heat and high humidity all week. It’s utterly miserable for everyone.

A golden initial 'Q'(uoniam) at the beginning of Luke's Gospel with which to end the day BnF MS Latin 9390; Evangelia quattuor (known as the Gospels of Metz)(1v-177r). — Capitulare evangeliorum (177v-190v); 10th century (second half after 969 CE); f.94r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

🫣

You’ve smithed your last aero

I underestimated how much this post would guarantee Bon Jovi would be playing in my head all day.

Incidentally—and since OCR is a form of AI—this remains one of my favorite jokes I’ve ever made but also relevant here. The best-guess-machine will always determine a thorn is a p. bsky.app/profile/sonj...

Fixed it ;-) (@bodleian.ox.ac.uk Eng. hist. a. 2, no. i, s. xi2)

I do not need or want media attention but listen it’s the principle of the thing. cite your damned sources

Oh good… more Augustine. We just didn’t have enough (he’s the top Latin author at 5 million words). But seriously, this is great. www.medievalists.net/2026/06/lost...

Yes, I was wondering if this was a scholar practising writing in Hebrew but with no previous knowledge of the script/language, which happens often in England!

One strange thing about coming to medieval history relatively late in my studies is that I will read books by people like Carlo Ginzburg or Marc Bloch very belatedly. The best time to read them may have been at some theoretical time in the past, but the second best time is now.

Hebrew Palaeography Question! Could anyone please help translate the inscription below, from the end leaves of a Latin Pocket Bible? The Latin inscription added afterwards shows the book was also owned by a Dominican friar, and the book is continental but was later in Oxford! 📖🔎

Perfect example of our economic issues: specialists should not be forced to work for a pittance due to desperation for a role. I can earn far more outside of my sector but am being pushed out by people with this attitude. We are as qualified as medical Drs.

Our garden is blooming

Procrastinated until the last moment and it turns out I *can* write a conference abstract in under 30 minutes and it *will* be better than what I'd planned to write when I first sat down to try and do so two weeks prior.

Job alert! British Library seeks a Curator for their Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts DL 12 July tinyurl.com/25fs9kun #medievalMSS

An academic tribute to Rosamond McKitterick, published by Reti Medievali. www.rm.unina.it?p=554

This is a splendid incipit page from Matthew's Gospel. Have you ever seen such an exquisite LIBER? BnF MS Latin 9390; Evangelia quattuor (known as the Gospels of Metz)(1v-177r). — Capitulare evangeliorum (177v-190v); 10th century (second half after 969 CE); f.18r @gallicabnf.bsky.social

Fixed it ;-) (@bodleian.ox.ac.uk Eng. hist. a. 2, no. i, s. xi2)

📣 People are understandably up in the arms about this (it is horrible). But just want to wave a hand out there 👋 as we're going through the same thing in Humanities at Northumbria (1 out of 5 staff need to go by end of July). 1/?

Just posting this to contrast with the glorious cold of last November.

We're still open.

Here is Ms. Codex 1566, a 14th century book of hours from Metz, France: a brief look inside, at the calendar, and then a miniature of the Virgin and Child, nursing - typical of use of Metz - at the opening of Matins. #medievalsky 🔗: https://bit.ly/4kJdOex

📣 #jobalert #medievalsky #Hebrew Curator for Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts 🏛️ @britishlibrary.bsky.social Full Time, Fixed Term: 24 months Salary: £35,993 per annum Deadline: 12th July 2026 ce0752li.webitrent.com/ce0752li_web...

Coming very soon! Marketing this exhibition is a bit different for reasons that I'll hopefully be able to share soon, but in the meantime do put this in your diary! (But if you visit, don't tell me about mistakes until it's been open at least a fortnight, please.)

📣 #jobalert #medievalsky #Hebrew Curator for Ancient and Medieval Manuscripts 🏛️ @britishlibrary.bsky.social Full Time, Fixed Term: 24 months Salary: £35,993 per annum Deadline: 12th July 2026 ce0752li.webitrent.com/ce0752li_web...

A huge relief…

If you missed last week's #CoffeeWithACodex, featuring two illuminated ketubahs (Jewish marriage contracts) you can watch it now on YouTube! Hosted by Louis Meiselman, Judaica Special Collections Cataloger at U. Penn Libraries youtu.be/iYwplxmy4B8

It's the Feast Day of the Nativity of St. John the Baptist! It's the feast commemorated in our flyleaf fragment from a 10th century sacramentary. So beautiful!

A few years ago I mocked up a facsimile of this manuscript just so I could get my head around its mechanics. I'm co-authoring an essay that discusses it so I opened this video I made, and you can hear my dog (then puppy) whimpering the background...my poor heart! www.metmuseum.org/art/collecti...

myself or the impact my ideas and work have had-- I should just feel lucky and not make a fuss about something as trivial as money. But money is THE indicator of value. I don't mean to make this about me - it's just the actual consequences of the messages and priorities our own organizations espouse

When I have the audacity to point this out, it makes people "uncomfortable" and I am told how much I simply "don't understand how it really is." I do understand. I'm "allowed" to be a part of the field, and my ideas have value only when I provide them for free. It does not matter how much I prove

medievalists don't have the right to expect to be paid for our expertise and the hours we work. Since then, I have had at least two instances where fellow medievalists have defended the wholesale capture of my work without paying me for it, or simply given the product of my work to someone else.

advertised what was essentially a full-time position as editor of Speculum for no pay, and defended it by saying there was no money. It was not a question of money, but rather priorities. This kind of devaluing of expertise not only hurt the eventual editor, but also sent a message that

This is the right question to be asking, Stewart. In the first instance, we need to demand that our own professional institutions value our work and make it clear that our work should be valued (in money, not "thanks"). This was a concern I raised a few years ago, for example, when the MAA