I recently purchased this banana stand secondhand, and I admit, my choice was 100% driven by the seller's hysterical description (translated here from Norwegian). Meet "the world's most honest banana holder"!

I still can't get over the way that at no point in the "you KICK Miette" tweet are we told that Miette is a cat, but absolutely everybody deduces this.

(Incidentally, this is why the study of history is also essential—and especially not only recent history, and not only the history of where you live!)

"The exercise of imagination is dangerous to those who profit from the way things are because it has the power to show that the way things are is not permanent, not universal, not necessary." -Ursula K. Le Guin, *A War Without End*

FWIW, I don’t think the major problem in my field, or related ones, is that people need to move faster & produce more. I read a lot of papers as part of the job, and I’m increasingly convinced we’d benefit from fewer papers and better ones, not more mediocre work produced ever more “efficiently.”

This!! I think about AI transcriptions a lot because a lot of my research involves processing a large number of documents. But usually I can actually just pull the info I need straight from the manuscript into my database, in which case the environmental cost of running the AI would be a waste, OR

📢JOB ALERT 📢 We are looking to appoint a F/T open-ended Lecturer in Late Medieval / Early Modern History (1400-1700) @lancasteruni.bsky.social. This is an amazing opportunity that we are very proud to announce, so please spread the word far and wide! www.hr-jobs.lancs.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Today's appreciation post goes to librarians for finding clever workarounds! When trying to track down a book I'd had a few months ago, I learned that apparently they're not allowed to keep a record of your loans for privacy reasons—annoying from a user standpoint, but fair enough.

💐Alles Gute zum #Muttertag! / Happy #Mother's_Day !💐 [UB Heidelberg, Cod. Pal. germ. 848, 299r] #medievalsky

lately what i think is that a person can be wrong in the same way that an LLM is wrong, but an LLM cannot be right in the same way that a person is right

I admit I was initially disconcerted when unwrapping this special issue on King Charles VI of France to apparently find myself with a dose of French philosophers instead 😅 (Is it normal for a publisher to use discarded paperback covers as protection during shipping? New to me!)

This website shows you what your browser is leaking about you. sinceyouarrived.world/taken

Hey there fellow syllabus-makers! Having sunk hours into finding student-friendly chapters on basic aspects of medieval history, I figured I'd sink several more into putting them in a handy list so I can quickly find them again—and so can you! Drop-down contents lists included for quick comparison.

Hey there fellow syllabus-makers! Having sunk hours into finding student-friendly chapters on basic aspects of medieval history, I figured I'd sink several more into putting them in a handy list so I can quickly find them again—and so can you! Drop-down contents lists included for quick comparison.

There are two types of history: one that’s unexpectedly exciting and one that’s a lot more boring than you thought

This is great! Also, how to support an academic: - read their papers - cite their articles and books - tell your friends and students about their work - include their work in your reading lists and syllabi - ask your library to buy their books - tell them you liked their work or that it was helpful

Time for that most sacred of all academic rituals, the laborious and time-consuming re-creation of your carefully laid-out syllabus as a sloppy reading list in the online software 😇

A big study that was cited as evidence that text generators are good for students has been retracted: www.linkedin.com/posts/ben-wi... www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Might have to print this one for my office door!

Puisqu'on parle de feu Jeanne d'Arc (🤭), aviez-vous déjà vu... ses signatures ? On ne conserve que cinq lettres d'elles qui ont été authentifiées, dont seulement trois signées (la 1ère aux habitants de Riom en 1429, les deux autres aux habitants de Reims en 1430) !

Who was in charge of ruling & layout for this manuscript?! (Koblenz, Landeshauptarchiv, Bestland 701 Nr. 138; early 15th century) #MedievalSky

Post your warning sign (Bite! Kick! Butt! KNOCK DOWN! has become a catchphrase in our house every since)

Well I *wasn't* going to do a "hey it's the [685th] anniversary of the death of Duke Jean III and the start of the Breton Civil War" post, but as it turns out, it's also the day my book on the afterlife of said war and the power couple responsible for half of it has appeared in paperback!

A report by the Hope and Courage Collective, which works to build resilience in communities against rising far-right hate and disinformation, has found a widening gap between public attitudes and political discourse

The problem with trying to find good syllabus readings for teaching history c. 1300–1500 is that handbook chapters on "medieval Europe" usually cover most the period leading up to it, while chapters on "early modern Europe" focus on the several centuries after 😅

I really wish institutional discussions about teaching "digital competence" would recognize that part of said competence is knowing when NOT to use tech (and having the right alternatives to enable one to do so).

When even the spambots can't be bothered not to half-ass their jobs any more 😂

Beset by weekend teaching dreams, but I must say it was a banger of a class 😂 (I seem to recall we were discussing the nature of criminal evidence in the Middle Ages, evolving into the wider issue of systems of world knowledge. I would never have reason to teach such a thing, but it sounded fun!)

Me agreeing to a new project knowing full well it’s gonna add stress 🇲🇽

Pleased to see this out! Really enjoyed reviewing this volume, which makes an important contribution to the theorisation of lordship

Katy Bennett @katybennett.bsky.social reviews 'Lordship and the Decentralized State in Late Medieval Europe', ed. Erika Graham-Goering @jeanneologist.bsky.social, Jim van der Meulen and Frederik Buylaert @academic.oup.com @britishacademy.bsky.social academic.oup.com/ehr/advance-...

Obviously I have just realized that "catharsis" has the same etymology as "Cathar". (I shall henceforth choose to interpret the former word in light of the latter.)

You know what I would read? A book on the social history of paperwork. I bet you could even make a good trade history book out of that, done right.

Question from ignorance: were any intellectuals aware in the Middle Ages that Islam and Christianity were related faiths? Obviously most people saw them as wholly distinct, but I don't know if there were any exceptions (on either side).

And for those interested, the Steam Medieval Fest sale has just gone live! ;)

(Call for papers) Global Histories of Hair, c.1500-2026 histoiresante.blogspot.com/2026/04/les-... #histbody

Congratulations to IMEMS' @tombhamilton.bsky.social, who has been awarded a @britishacademy.bsky.social Mid-Career Fellowship to work on 'The Social Roots of Religious Violence in Sixteenth-Century Paris'!🎉 Read Tom's recent article in French Historical Studies: read.dukeupress.edu/french-histo...

This has now got me wondering, how many European queens married two kings? I can think of at least two others in the 15 seconds I have for a lunch break today, but I'm sure the number's considerably higher... OK back to teaching now!

Reminder: 10 days left to submit a proposal to this special issue on Valois France! We've had lots of exciting abstracts so far, so it's shaping up to be a really interesting collection ^_^ We'd love to hear from you (or just pass this on to anyone who might be interested)!

Argh I once saw a promising EU-based alternative to Google Photos on here, but now I've forgotten the name and can't spot it on the main "European Alternatives" websites... Anyone have a service they like? :)

Trying to find a good option to rotate into my course on history-themed video games. We have Pentiment (yay!) and Crusader Kings 3, so looking (probably) for action-RPG or builder game. Students will have about 20 hours' play time, so nothing sprawling. Medieval preferred, not required. Any recs?

Outrageously tickled* to learn that the herald who compiled the Armorial Beyeren included an extremely important list of "the 3 best Jans" 😂 Now that's what I call Jeanneology! www.kb.nl/en/discover-... *yes I'm spending a lot of time being delighted by sources these days, it's great

Hm, how long does a medievalist need to visit Barcelona? And is Valencia worth a side-trip? Advise me!

OK I am over here trying to pick sources about the Albigensian Crusade and this is all very distracting

Extremely glad to learn that William of Tudela, the author of the Song of the Albigensian Crusade, did not suffer from impostor syndrome in the slightest 😂

Been thinking about this dynamic as Oslo's public transit rolls out another of its regular "when you buy your ticket, you help make our offer better for everyone!" PSA campaign. The things you can accomplish when you have a collaborative mindset as your starting-point are really wonderful.

Me: ::heaves a large sigh:: OH: Are you okay? Me: What? That was a happy sigh! ...for some really well thought-out political theory OH: ... ::pats my head::

Getting completely sidetracked by this line from Parzival: "He had renounced wine, either mulberry or grape"—what's this? Was the mulberry wine industry on par with grape wine in medieval Germany? What does mulberry wine taste like? Can I try some? I need to know!

On the one hand, a transit snarl dragged my commute to a whole hour today, so now I'm having to chug my nice latte pre-teaching. On the other hand, I had time to discover this hilarious aside in the fourth continuation of Chrétien's Perceval (trans. Bryant). Damn stingy lords! 😂

Welcome to the Royal Studies Journal We’re an open-access, peer-reviewed journal dedicated to global royal studies across all periods, places, and disciplines. Explore our latest research, special issues, and book reviews, Join the conversation: rsj.winchester.ac.uk @royalstudies.bsky.social