Enmeshed in marking, but just thought I'd point out that this article is now out, open access: Simon MacLean, arguing that the Astronomer's Life of Louis the Pious could be rather later than historians have assumed: might 'the Astronomer' be Jonas of Orleans? onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

My new article has now been published in the 2025 volume of Traditio. I use a little examined episode on the lower Rhine in the late 350s with the aid of agricultural archaeology to reveal fiscal dependency relations between the Empire & Barbaricum, & the consequences of their rupture. #medievalsky

I'm very happy to see that my new article on the martyrs of Zaragoza is out in this year's Traditio. Many thanks to the Traditio team, who were wonderful to work with! doi.org/10.1017/tdo....

hey on Mondays we try and post something about the Middle Ages, the study of the Middle Ages, the work we're doing, the work others are doing, and more. You can subscribe for free. We liked this study that used multiple disciplinary models to make an argument about biodiversity ca 500-100.

For the feast of Columbanus, d. 615, let me repost this thread, which links to other threads, about the script of Luxeuil, which was founded by Columbanus. Note that Columbanus founded Luxeuil in the 590s but the famous script dates from the early 700s.

Palaeography 🧵! Or why it can take a historian a while to confirm what they already suspected must be the case and not really get any further than they were—but this time with confidence 😂 I'm working with documents that list the incomes of medieval French lordships, so a lot of it is about grain.

This is the feast–in all the churches!–of Willibrord, Apostle to the Frisians, d. 739. 🕯️ First up: the Calendar of Willibrord, BNF lat 10837, an early-8c manuscript written on the Continent, probably at Echternach, mainly in Insular majuscule. #medievalsky 🧵 portail.biblissima.fr/en/ark:/4309...

‘For every genuine relic-bearing cleric, however, there was a peddler of fake goods. What were authorities to do in cases where crowds seemed to legitimise miscreants?’ Pablo Scheffer on the early medieval crowd regime: www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Happy to report that our book 'Local Priests in the Latin West, 900-1050' has been published! It is Open Access, so you can read (or download) it here: doi.org/10.1017/9781...

Five years, four authors, one book. Out now (fully open access), our new book on local priests in the tenth century 🌟 www.cambridge.org/core/books/l... @jbwaagmeester.bsky.social

Congrats to @laurysarti.bsky.social on her new book on Merovingian Francia and the Roman Empire, open access and downloadable here (scroll to bottom of page) brill.com/display/titl...

Do colleagues have favourite readings to give graduate students to help them think about the problems as well as possibilties of doing inter-disciplinary work in medieval studies? I'd be grateful for suggestions please.

New in open access #medievalsky: Bede's Medical Books! www.cambridge.org/core/journal... Keepin' it Old School this time

Interested in letter-writing in early medieval Britain? A three-year postdoc on @francescatinti.bsky.social’s and my project is now available. Apps close on 17th Oct. Let me know if you have any questions and please circulate! 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Tämä ei ole hyvän mielen postaus, mutta ehkä syksyn tärkein postaukseni. Suosittelen kaikille tutkijoille ja tutkimusryhmille: käsitelkää törkyriskejä ja suunnitelkaa toimenpiteitä etukäteen yhdessä. Lähiaikoina on tiettävästi odotettavissa törkyä tiedeyhteisöä kohtaan. Ketjusta muutama pikavinkki.

This is the feast of Theodore of Tarsus, d. 690, Archbishop of Canterbury. 🕯️ Let's look at a few early manuscripts of works that have been attributed to him. 🧵 The most securely-attributed work is the Laterculus Malalianus, seen here in the earlier of 2 surviving MSS, BAV Pal. lat. 277, 8c.

'sickos' vocitantur, de eo quod per fenestram ridentes, 'ha ha ha... sic!' clamant -Isidorus Hispalensis

2046: the american empire lies in ruins. in the east, the trump dynasty holds sway over the remains, united in the orthodoxy that charlie kirk is of one substance with the Father; in the west, barbarian successor kingdoms have recently converted to a heresy that holds him to be of similar substance

A two-line verse dedication: "Non rodant mures, non ausint tollere fures Librum, qui domino datus est a patre Frowino." Engelberg, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. 76; Expositio S. Hieronymi duodecim prophetarum; 1143-1178; Engelberg; f.1r (www.e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)

Well, BretPal is coming to a swift end as of 30 September. Between now and then, I'll be posting my favourite Breton manuscripts, starting with the iconic horse Mark from the Boulougne Gospels (Boulogne sur Mer, MS 8).

The last page of the first part of Gratian's Decretum, ending with D.101 d.p.c.1 in a manuscript from the 1190s, written in Bologna. The second gloss layer in the bottom contains a version of the apparatus "Ecce vicit leo" on C.1 authored before 1210 by Petrus Brito, professor in Paris. 1/

This is a tale of two castles One of those buildings is fully original, an almost model example of its style; the other one is fake, built on the ruins of a medieval castle with a fully modern interior. 1/

Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social has gone through EME’s back catalogue to create this timely virtual special issue on tariffs and tolls in early medieval Europe gathering five contributions originally published between 1992 and 2025. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

'In nomine Domini, Clemens Uuillibrordus anno sexcentessimo nonagessimo ab incarnatione Christi ueniebat ultra mare in Francea.' A collection of all my posts related to my research on #Willibrord & early medieval #Echternach in one thread. #MedievalSky

Vase, reputed to be the one used by Saint Martin to collect the blood of the martyred Theban Legion - according to legend, it was brought to him by an angel for that very purpose. In reality it's a Roman sardonyx vessel from around the year 0, set in a gold cloissoné mount from around the year 500.

We need a Star Trek episode about how the invention of the universal translator caused people to stop valuing actually learning languages, while they fatally overestimated the UT's accuracy and the resulting misunderstandings led to a massive war that tore the quadrant apart

I aced my early medieval palaeography exam in 2013. Can confirm.

Just described the Carolingians to a student as "boring glory" and I think I'm gonna stick with that.

Apparently I need to spend money to make my dissertation Open Access on Proquest, so I've instead hosted it on my blog. If you want to read "From Usurper to Emperor: Political Practice and Dynastic Tradition in the Reign of Arnulf of Carinthia, 887-899" just follow this link: #medievalsky

Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine getting some attention today in the Times! If you missed it last week our handlist of "new" pre-1000 medical manuscripts can be found here cemlm.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/handlist/ #medievalsky

The Papyrus Museum of the Austrian National Library in Vienna is an underrated treasure with a spectacular collection of Coptic, Greek and Arabic papyri from Egypt. #papyrus #ancient #medieval Highlight 🧵 : A Coptic amulet for protection against scorpions. (1/6)

when your boss throws a pizza party and it's the fourth century

Hey! My friend Emilia has written a piece on the headaches of being an international trans person - which are considerable. Do read and share around!

I am seeing posts that it is ostensibly World Goth Day, which surely cannot be correct as it is the anniversary of neither of their greatest victories, which were both in August.

I need to rant & praise re: folio numbers in digitized manuscript interfaces. Long boring 🧵 coming, unless you, too, obsess over niche usability matters. Background: when I'm choosing MS images to use for my saints+manuscripts posts, I want to navigate to the page I want, download a high-res image,

#medievalsky #seenbutwithoutthebird

My therapist: Don’t worry, Merovingian cursive is not real, it can’t hurt you Merovingian cursive:

Waiting for this Leo to randomly crown someone emperor on Christmas. Just wait for someone to kneel on the big red dot and BAM! CORONATION TIME!

Delighted to see EME's new Special Issue, guested edited by Danuta Shanzer, is now out: *Talking Narratives in Early Medieval Europe*. "Stories are like accordions, expanded and compressed". onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/toc/10.1...

A few weeks ago, a colleague asked me for help dating a medieval document long considered a forgery. Yes, a forgery—but one with a precise date: the year 1033. And yet no one had ever asked: what if that date actually matches the likely time it was produced? 👇 #MssStudies

This very fine book of @xuthal.bsky.social's greatest hits is now available for pre-order with @cornellupress.bsky.social: www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/9781501... #medievalsky

My little liturgical-codicological mind has been blown. When I was reading the Bobbio Missal and Gelasian Sacramentary in Holy Week, I focused for the 1st time on the description of the ceremonies in Lent where the 4 Evangelist symbols + the opening of each Gospel were explained to catechumens. 🕯️🧵

Our opening @ceraejournal.bsky.social conference keynote, @jkeskiah.bsky.social, on the origins of dreams in Gregory the Great: dreams can be a product of a full (or an empty) stomach, and holy men can discern dreams by a secret taste. Well, I have just one response to that: MEDIEVAL CHEESE DREAMS!

Delighted that my article, ‘The Circle of the World: The Global Diplomacy of Caliph al-Manṣūr’, is now out OA with BSOAS. Come for a journey stretching from the Atlantic to China, tracing how the caliph brought the world to Baghdad: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #MedievalSky #GlobalMiddleAges

Re-posting for the morning crowd...

Anything during the saeculum obscurum of the tenth century where they just kept getting murdered and appointed on an almost yearly basis

As we enter #HolyWeek, we'll take a break from Saints+MSS & look instead at manuscript evidence for liturgies of the week. This is John 12:12-16, the Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, in the Bobbio Missal, Paris, BNF lat. 13246, from early 8th c. Merovingian Gaul. #medievalsky #liturgy #paleography 🧵

A couple of days ago I shared the study of Lévêque et al. 2025 who had revealed through aDNA analysis that the books produced in the Cistercian abbeys in Western Europe were in fact covered with sealskin, previously thought to be skins of local animals (deer, boar etc.)

🧵 Is this a Dire wolf... 🤔? No... Our @erc.europa.eu Beasts to Craft team led by Élodie Lévêque uncovered the true identity of mysterious hairy covers on #medieval #Cistercian #manuscripts - they're ... 👇

An excellent thread on the Cistercian ms covers, by one of the paper's authors.