The Angels' Kitchen, Eugène Grasset, originally the cover for the 1893 Christmas issue of l'Illustration magazine.

grimch

Delighted about this - Humanitarian Scholarship in our department at MRes level . Palestinian eligibility. please share www.liverpool.ac.uk/study/fees-a... #gaza #palestine #humanitarian #irish #masters #academia

Vacancy: Assistant Professor of Celtic, with a specialism in Old Irish, University of Cambridge. #MedievalSky www.cam.ac.uk/jobs/assista...

A break from Christmas content to enjoy this capybara eating a banana. From François Froger's 'A relation of a voyage ...' (London, 1698).

On the Third Sunday of Advent, we light three candles - perfect occasion to share the oldest preserved candles found north of the Alps. The candles were made from beeswax around 1,400 years ago. They were found in the early #medieval burial site in Oberflacht. The damp...🧵1/2 📷 me

I was just talking to my kids about this! They were asking about Jesus as a child. I will be armed with more apocrypha for them in the morning.

British medievalists! With perfect Christmas timing, Bennett & Kerr are selling 30-odd second-hand OMTs (from the library of John Maddicott, nisi fallor). Their website has been practically dead for ages and doesn’t include the books listed here, but you can order them by email. www.benkerrbooks.com

So many of the things I used to correct when marking - clunky prose, bad grammar, unnecessary quotation marks- have now become beautiful markers of authenticity

We are delighted to share the programme for our upcoming conference! We will be running fourteen panels across two days in early February - all online and open to everyone 😊 please see our website for more details on speakers, panels and how to book.

The Magdalen Reading, c. 1435, delicately turning the page, beside her alabaster jar of ointment, oil on panel, fragment of altarpiece by Rogier van der Weyden, influential Flemish artist (c.1400-1464), pupil of Robert Campin, court painter to Duke of Burgundy. National Gallery London

The ad for the second postdoctoral position on our @leverhulme.ac.uk Britain’s Early Medieval Letters project is now live. We’re looking for an Old English specialist (who also works with Latin). 32-month FT post. Deadline for apps is 16 Jan 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

This is still an ongoing crisis and not getting nearly enough media attention. Please share. @atrupar.com @hcrichardson.bsky.social @joycewhitevance.bsky.social

Wanna see some fingerprints of a Roman who spread some liquid gypsum on a dead body? seeingthedead.ac.uk/blog/fingerp...

This is horrifying on a number of levels, but not because raising a baby is easy or we already knew how to do it. I spent many night time hours on Mumsnet which in retrospect was not really better.

TIL about a memorial ceremony in Iceland in 2019 to mark the end of a glacier, changing the place name from Okjökull to Ok (jökull = glacier). Uncompromising wording on the bronze plaque: "This is to acknowledge that we know what is happening and what needs to be done. Only you know if we did it".

Figurative Norman fonts in the East Riding of Yorkshire. Unwrapped.

Reading this with my students tomorrow. 'The writer of history is a walking anachronism… He must try to work authentically, hearing the words of the past, but communicating in a language the present understands.' It’s all just so good! www.theguardian.com/books/2017/j...

Reading this with my students tomorrow. 'The writer of history is a walking anachronism… He must try to work authentically, hearing the words of the past, but communicating in a language the present understands.' It’s all just so good! www.theguardian.com/books/2017/j...

📣 2026/7 MA in Medieval Studies scholarships 📣 We are delighted to announce that we will be awarding two MA scholarships for the 2026/7 MA in Medieval Studies cohort. Full details can be found on the CMS website: www.york.ac.uk/medieval-stu... Spread the news!

Astounded to learn that York’s statue of Constantine was commissioned because York was apparently suffering from ‘a dearth of great men’ in statue form… castinstone.exeter.ac.uk/database/s/e...

Brilliant drama-history thread

This might be hard to grasp for British people, but the damage that this and Brexit are doing to the international reputation of British universities is huge. When I moved here 11 years ago, coming to the UK was basically the dream. Now I would never advise international colleagues to come here

I just read Ali Smith’s How to be Both. Absolutely astounded to discover that different copies have the story in the opposite order!

And the news is... We're recruiting! Applications are now open for our 2026 @leverhulme.ac.uk Doctoral Scholarships. So, if you want to study at PhD level pre-modern handwritten cultures and the organisation of knowledge and power within them, do investigate our refreshed website.

2-year position for a woman - could be a medievalist!

Wonderful (if chilly) morning celebrating with our graduates in York Minster.

My review of Tomás Mario Kalmar’s King Alfred the Great, his Hagiographers and his Cult: A Childhood Remembered doi.org/10.1017/jbr....

My review of Tomás Mario Kalmar’s King Alfred the Great, his Hagiographers and his Cult: A Childhood Remembered doi.org/10.1017/jbr....

If you're looking for illustrations for "AI", don't use robots, glowing disembodied brains, or computer code in empty space. Here are a some alternative suggestions:

FORGOTTEN VIKINGS releases in paperback today, although, of course, a few early sightings have already been noted from the wildlands!

Love being reminded to do this every year. It's a win/win all round

If you know anyone who works on medieval Judaism, please send them this! Binghamton is hiring a Talmud/Rabbinics assistant prof: half in Judaic Studies, half in the Med/Ren center. A killer R1 job for the right person, and not a ton of applicants so far....

A thing about AI in higher ed right now is that half of us are scrambling to deal with the implosion of our information environment that broke reading/writing/source verification, while the other half is trying to achieve a massive institutional buy-in of the very thing that's causing the implosion

ICYMI yesterday afternoon a fantastic new digital resource pulling together data on the Roman road network has just launched. Explore at:

“They didn’t just walk in chasing one person, they went into multiple rooms asking and looking for teachers while children were present,” Ramirez said. “This is an agency that has gone rogue and it an agency that believes that as long as they can cover their face, they can get away with anything.”

“How did you receive the foreigner? And did you receive him and welcome him or not?” Pope Leo XIV challenges us to reflect on the moral cost of policies that target deeply-root immigrants and families.

Today in my Viking Age module we read Ibn Fadlan’s account of a Rus’ funeral, with this article in particular prompting some great discussion. Always find something new to talk about in this text! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

This Wednesday (5/11/25) 17.30 UTC, we're delighted to welcome Dr Peter Jones (Plymouth), who will be speaking on William Morris's travel in Iceland. Free to attend in person in the IHR or online, but please register in advance. Details, abstract and registration: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Discovery that one of my maternal ancestors was a shot putter led me down a rabbit hole to this great article by @hpsvanessa.bsky.social pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC...

An important article challenging the views of earlier archaeologists about 'Pictish cellular' vs. 'Norse rectangular' building styles. The authors could also have challenged more clearly the earlier view that they mention, namely that 'the early Viking conquest' took place 'around AD 800'. 🧵1/6

When one of my colleagues asked about whether any data will be collected on learning outcomes, we were told that "AI is no longer window dressing it is table setting"

Useful account of some of the issues around metal detecting and the burden on FLOs and PAS. I like the idea of detectorists paying in for a licence - maybe this money could be used to provide a flat fee for any significant finds (if desired)

A neat tool I just came across: Viabundus, a digital road map of northern Europe 1350-1650, that lets you calculate contemporary travel routes/times. In 1500, going Amiens → Köln by horse took almost 7 days and 13 toll payments. #medievalsky www.landesgeschichte.uni-goettingen.de/handelsstras...

Wow! This is incredibly cynical

yes. I switched to using “products” instead of even “tools” to make clear what they are.

Parents! Carers! Anyone thinking of buying a child a "science kit" for Christmas. For the same / less cost, buy a copy of "Recipes for Wonder" and put together a box of household "ingredients" which will let them do actual science and be a much more personal gift alomshaha.com/portfolio/mr...

The more I learn about research funding the more confused I am. Do the AHRC and ESRC not have a defined pot of money to distribute per scheme? Or a set number of projects to fund? They can’t possibly be claiming that 99% of projects are not of sufficient quality.

'New research coordinated by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and led by the BBC has found that AI assistants – already a daily information gateway for millions of people – routinely misrepresent news content no matter which language, territory, or AI platform is tested.' 1/2