Ministers and university managers "have to recognise that it is in everyone’s interests to replace the current individualistic practice of lopping off random branches of the tree whenever a wind blows with a collective long-term concern for the balance and shape of the tree overall." 3/3

Anthony Kaldellis just posted his latest Byzantium & Friends podcast episode, where he interviews Charles Kuper, the translator of The Menologion of Basil II, on that manuscript. He also discusses Kuper’s translation for DOML.

Do you want to learn to read old documents? Do you need to learn some Latin? The 49th Palaeography Summer School is for you! 👇 Tell all your friends. #palaeography #Skystorians #MedievalSky palaeography.uk/study/short-...

The 'stinging rebuke' is open access here. You don't need to be an historian to applaud it. #Skystorians 2/2

PSA: Titivillus was *not* associated with scribal error in the Middle Ages. This was dismissed as a chortlemuffin in 1958 by André Vernet, who pointed the finger at the entry on scribes in Franklin’s Dictionnaire historique des arts, métiers et professions (1905): archive.org/details/dict... (1/5)

PSA: Titivillus was *not* associated with scribal error in the Middle Ages. This was dismissed as a chortlemuffin in 1958 by André Vernet, who pointed the finger at the entry on scribes in Franklin’s Dictionnaire historique des arts, métiers et professions (1905): archive.org/details/dict... (1/5)

‘Palpo’ sounds like the sort of pally name a fake intelligence company would give a chatbot, and as Walter of Wimborne put it in his 13th-century poem about flatterers: palpo sententiae favet utrilibet, gratus quibuslibet quia qualislibet. So my suggestion is ‘(argumentum) a palpone’.

Reposting for the morning crows.

Some of us will sympathize with Nycticorax, the night-raven, who takes refuge in his tower during the daytime and apparently removes the stairs to his front door just in case. #medievalLatin

“…This will also ensure that the journal can return to using footnotes rather than ones confined to the end of the article.” Talk about burying the lede!

This will be a lot of fun to decipher by taking rubbings (or whatever they do these days). E.g. the story beginning “Quadam vice quaedam rustica dixit puero quod eum lupo dare vellet nisi diceret…” Unless he said what? Speak, history! #toilethumour #medievalLatin

“Companions and handbooks proliferate,” admits Scott Scullion in the introduction, but the Oxford Handbook of Greek and Latin Textual Criticism looks set to earn its place on your shelf or bedside table (and hopefully mine!). Chapter abstracts here: academic.oup.com/edited-volum... (1/2)

Intrigued to read of the Franciscans “Warechoiten, Corotoue, Almuuick,te & Hattan” in the 1535 edition of Woodford’s Contra Trialogum Wyclif. A quick manuscript check corrects them to “Ware, Chatton, Cowton’, Al<n>wyk & Okham”. What a world, where one can do a quick manuscript check! #medievalLatin

Exciting news about @mediumaevum.bsky.social and its future with @chicagojournals.bsky.social : www.journals.uchicago.edu/medium-aevum

🚨 Latin and Syriac! Multiple levels! 🚨 This is an incredible bargain. The Marco Institute is truly a light in the darkness.

Literally the best email I've ever received. No notes.

Passing observations for which I’ll never have a proper outlet, #9494: in this C14th prescription for impotence, ‘veni’ (printed with a question mark by a modern editor) must be a miscopying of ‘rem’. So it’s possible that ‘penna’ is likewise an error for ‘-enis’. #birdbrainedbollocks #medievalLatin

Passing observations for which I’ll never have a proper outlet, #9494: in this C14th prescription for impotence, ‘veni’ (printed with a question mark by a modern editor) must be a miscopying of ‘rem’. So it’s possible that ‘penna’ is likewise an error for ‘-enis’. #birdbrainedbollocks #medievalLatin

Freelance work is coming in for the summer with people's research fund pots needing using up; so do contact me via www.joanneedge.co.uk sooner rather than later for your archive/transcription/editing needs! #MedievalSky #EarlyModern

New paper pre-print, accepted at FAccT 2026, wherein @fintanmallory.com , @sashamtl.bsky.social , and I argue that hype-laden AI terms like “hallucination”, “reasoning”, and “agent” are doing strategic, rhetorical work, which we call "glosslighting".

Eco published a revised version of The Name of the Rose in 2012, and a few years ago the changes were collated for a PhD project by Christian D’Agata. His collation is available at the site linked below and he has now published a book analysing his findings 🤓 www.variantidellarosa.it/varianti/#po...

Registration is now open for the online Marco Summer Language Program! Latin at three levels (including Advanced Medieval Latin, taught by me) and Syriac at two. Course fees are reasonable; my small-group classes are $27.78/hour (£20.55). #medievalSky #medievalLatin marco.utk.edu/summerlangua...

12-month, fixed term

Registration is now open for the online Marco Summer Language Program! Latin at three levels (including Advanced Medieval Latin, taught by me) and Syriac at two. Course fees are reasonable; my small-group classes are $27.78/hour (£20.55). #medievalSky #medievalLatin marco.utk.edu/summerlangua...

Another great #LIPS26 course: further your understanding of medieval texts that have never been edited. Book your spot by 22nd May: buff.ly/GEkudq3 #palaeography #paleography #LIPS26

This summer school has 4 courses: intro level courses on Latin and reading medieval documents and advanced courses on wills and inquisitions. Check it out #Skystorians and tell your students (please and thank you) 👇📚🎓📜

Some new Latin poetry by women (or possibly one woman using two names). Hot off the press!

This raised a wry smile. #onwardsandupwards

Calling #Skystorians #MedievalSky the 49th Latin and Palaeography Summer School (formerly the Keele summer school) is open for bookings. 27-31 July in Birmingham. 👇 palaeography.uk/study/short-...

The feature, which Grammarly shut down Wednesday, presented editing suggestions as if they came from established authors and academics—without their consent. www.wired.com/story/gramma...

I just downloaded an article on a C19th mathematical controversy, and Elsevier’s ScienceDirect platform popped up to suggest some PDFs for me to download from the Hellenic Journal of Cardiology, the International Journal of Cardiology, and Deep Sea Research Part II: Topical Studies in Oceanography 🤡

The problem with the Spanish is that they don’t have a word for armada. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

I have departed colleagus whom I miss dearly and whose advice I would love to have. If someone decided to give me AI slop disguised as "expert advice" from them, I don't think I'd be able to control my reaction. Butlerian Jihad Now (both the Dune one and whatever holy war Judith Butler would fight)

TV show pitch: ‘Tome Team’, where a group of rare books librarians and book historians are sent to investigate an uncatalogued library for interesting incunabula, marginalia and provenances - and they have just three days to do it.

Hello! It's two years since Thomas, my gorgeous son, died. Next month, Alison and I, along with around 30 friends and family, will be doing a memory walk in support of Children's Hospice South West. If you could spare a few quid in sponsorship, that would be 😍 www.justgiving.com/page/thomas-...

I wrote a piece for the CDBU blog with some low or no cost things our employers could do right now if they care about precarious staff as much as they say they do.

I hate to tap the sign but again: this is all made to make in-person education and access to knowledge transfer a preserve of the elite. Human education for the few, bots for the many.

This is horrific. Docking all pay for refusing to reschedule teaching due to strike action (for which pay has already been docked).

This map is a thing of beauty and explains so much about why norther rail is a thorny issue.

The German Research Foundation, possibly the most important funding body for academic research in Germany, is now not only allowing the use of AI to write applications, they‘ll also allow it to evaluate said applications. Only prerequisite is that one makes this transparent. It‘s a farce.

🎓Latin Job Alert!🎓 UGent's Department of Literary Studies is hiring a tenure-track Assistant Professor of Latin Literature, with a focus on a late period (medieval and/or early modern), starting 1 September 2026. Applications are due by 28 January 2026 at midnight (Brussels time). See link below⬇️

Martin Peterson's creative response to being banned from teaching Plato (shared with his permission).

Just love how the same university that shamelessly promotes gen AI gives me a sanctimonious instruction upon requesting a hard copy of a thesis for examination to 'Please consider the environmental impact, and whether a printed copy of the thesis is necessary, before doing so.'

Excellent exposé of a 20th-century Chortlemuffin (talk by Holly Ordway, 7 Sept 2024): www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSC6...

I’ve got used to having to wade through “AI” slop when doing online research – in the way that you can get used to a terminal diagnosis, that is – but this was a new low: clicking through to a few search results in quick succession, only to be temporarily banned as a potential scraper bot 😠

Bookings are open for Textual Criticism and the Transmission of Texts. Learn how to build a critical edition and a stemma codicum, step by step, with Dr Anna Somfai. Thursdays 2-4pm, 16 April-7 May 2026. Book: warburg.sas.ac.uk/news-events/... #TextualCriticism #MedievalStudies

I posted this👇 to a claim that genAI is better than Ctl+F to search historical docs. @tristanpalmgren.bsky.social replied with a genAI summary of my document and @bookllyfr.bsky.social asked if it was accurate. It turns out that it did exactly what genAI does: made stuff up & got stuff wrong.🧵

Publication – Lucien Reynhout, « Les colophons » rmblf.be/2025/12/17/p...

Right, that’s it. We need bounty hunters to track down the fake academics who are publishing LLM-generated bullshit and “retire” them, by which I mean mercilessly expose them until they’re ostracized by their genuine academic colleagues and ultimately kicked out of the jobs they don’t deserve. 🕵️‍♂️