Recent purchase at a second-hand bookshop based mostly on how fantastic the cover art is--although I have heard a little about the strange and tumultuous careers of the Shirleys, so I'm sure it'll be an interesting read!

#onmydesktoday is a big and timely book about European communication by the great Joad Raymond Wren. Exploring a world of #earlymodern newsmongers, translators and postmasters, Joad highlights that news moved and were shared, and that news binds us together. Good news for #skystorians.

The warfare of the Dutch revolt offered opportunities for the skilled horsemen of the 'riding surnames'. One was the infamous Redesdale murderer George Hall, who fled and was outlawed but allowed to return home at the request of Sir Philip Sidney, "w[ith] whome he s[er]ued in the Lowe cuntries".

A particularly stark example of iconoclast damage: the tomb of Jan van Arkel, bishop of Utrecht from 1342 to 1364, damaged in 1580, in Domkerk, Utrecht.

Wonderful artefact at the Plantin-Moretus museum in Antwerp: weights for dozens of different coins from a range of countries! I noticed ones for English angels and rose crowns.

At the Bourse in sixteenth-century Antwerp you could enter a sweepstake for the Papal election, where you were assigned a random cardinal and won the pot if they were chosen! (Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt).

While wandering around Portland Island yesterday we came across the graves of Mary Way and William Lano, two of the four people killed by a press-gang in the Easton Massacre, 1803.

Many busy things this month! Pleased to have presented my paper, “Stubborn, Ungratful Carriage: Early Quakerism and the Politics of Poor Relief” at @socialhistsoc.bsky.social earlier this month. Also pleased to have finally graduated from Durham (1 year post viva!) 🎉💃🏻 Feeling very grateful ❤️

4-year Departmental Lectureship in Global & Imperial History in Oxford: www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DOC516/d...

*reading is my happy place* #booksky

In 1544 an English merchant in Calais named Otwell Johnson wrote to his brother John, & asked him to remind their sister to buy some eels in London for Lent. Which is basically the 16th C. version of texting someone to stop by the store on the way home. 🗃️🧪

I cannot wait to read @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social 's new book, reviewed here by Rowan Williams (!) for the Observer, observer.co.uk/culture/book...

New word of the day: desideratum. From Janette Dillon, Performance and Spectacle in Hall's Chronicle, a chance charity shop find.

'Scholars interested in monasticism, precursors of the Enlightenment, and early modern British and Irish history should not miss the essays included in this collection'. Review in Sixteenth Century Journal of the first volume in the series @16csociety.bsky.social #history #skystorians #nuntastic

Derbyshire man Leonard Wheatcroft built up a list of questions in 1671, 29 in total. Loving these today, incredible train of thought: 'why have men Beards & women none', 'why have sum women Beads & sum none'. The list get better and better as it goes on too

Looking for #earlymodern English descriptions of #fairy clothing. Can anyone help? #earlymodernsky I have the 1635 'description of the king and queene of fayries, their habit', and its expansion in Musarum Deliciae, 1655, but would be interested in other sources.

The 'border causes' resolved by the commissioners for the treaty of Carlisle (1597) feature many bills entered by women, complaining of the theft of their livestock and goods, but only one against a woman: this complaint that the goodwife of Newham had been involved in the theft of two oxen.

Tinted, double-hinged spectacles, c.1790. Many opticians believed green or blue glass was easier on the eyes and would reduce glare; while clear glass was too soft and would distort images. This example is from the Wellcome Collection in London.

Just over a week to go until the closing date for this...

I know it's only part time, since this is cover for Alison Cooley being made head of Warwick Institute of Advanced Studies (take it up with the powers who decide these buy outs), but there is a 3 year teaching gig at in Roman history at Warwick. www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNX770/a...

In 1597, the Northumbrian John Brown described some of the infamous thieves of Tynedale and Redesdale as, "as notoryous in this age... as ever was Robyn Hoode in his tyme”--drawing on older versions of the myths where Robin could be more of a violent anti-hero than the egalitarian version we know.

A bit disappointed that this random pub game where you guess the year of various events had one answer in the nineteenth century, one from WWII, and the rest were 'remember when?' politics and pop culture questions from the 90s and 2000s.

Random, lovely image I've came across while reading about the history of Antwerp: Maria of Austria, Queen Dowager of Hungary and governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1530 to 1555, sister of Charles V, by Cornelis Anthonisz. Maria was a keen hunter and became Chief Huntmaster of Brabant in 1543.

Thank you to our speakers and attendees for making the conference so special! Wonderful to hear from so many scholars who work on or are intrigued by James VI & I… We hope you will keep the momentum going and we look forward to seeing what the future of Jacobean studies holds!

#CFP Be part of our #RSA2026 panel in San Francisco! "Interrogating Sovereignty: Catholicism and Female Authority in Tudor-Habsburg Networks" Deadline July 24 Share freely! #WomensHistory #ArtHistory #EarlyModern #Medieval #Catholic #Tudor #Habsburg #XX #Monarchy #Queens #Nobility #Renaissance

Fantastic final day to end the fantastic @kingjamesconf.bsky.social! So many brilliant papers. Thanks so much to all of the speakers and especially the organisers for a great three days.

Vegetal portrait of Emperor Rudolf II as Vertumnus. Suggesting that smart rulers are capable of laughing at themselves. Painted by Giuseppe Arcimboldo, whose day is today, in 1590.

Some good references to drama at the Elizabethan court here, from the privy council register, 1583. Lord Leicester's players, the Lord Chamberlain's men, a troop of tumblers, and some children putting on a play for St Stephen's Day.

Absolutely incredible workshop led by Cameron Maclean at @kingjamesconf.bsky.social, handling some absolutely beautiful Jacobean coins and medals!

In the wildness that is UK university restructuring, it turns out I'm teaching seminars for *early modern British history* next year. The last time I read in that field was 2008. #skystorians, what should I be reading between now and October?

Had a fantastic first day at @kingjamesconf.bsky.social! Loads of fantastic papers, exploring so many different facets of James VI and his time.

Fergal Leonard explains how the people of the West March responded to the uncertainty and opportunities related to James’s English succession…naturally, some were more foolhardy than others, upsetting both James and Queen Elizabeth

I was in my early 20s when I first read Rose Thurgood’s account of her life, written in 1636-7 while she was fearing that she and her four children would starve to death, such was their poverty. This was a completely different voice to those I was used to encountering in 17th-century writing. 1/3

Delighted to catch up with Gordon McKelvie at #IMC2025. Save 50% on "Rebellion in Medieval Europe, c.1000-c.1500", co-edited with Adrian Jobson and Harriet Kersey - quote code BB094. buff.ly/xHH5fjU #MedievalSky @gordonmckelvie.bsky.social

In 1582, Captain of Bewcastle Thomas Musgrave met with Sim Armstrong of Whithaugh to fight to the death. In 1599, Sim--by then married to Musgrave's daughter--came to Bewcastle for “football playing and... a drynkyng”. Both incidents ended in fights between the Scots and uninvited English guests.

Madeleine of Valois, Queen of Scots, died on this day in 1537 thefreelancehistorywriter.com/2012/09/25/m...

We are thrilled to announce that the Conflict, War and Violence in the Early Modern World Conference, with a keynote address by Professor Mark Stoyle, will be held on 30-31 October at the University of Exeter. Please help us spread the world, and consider submitting a proposal!🗡️

OTD 375 years ago: Cathalina del Monte stood in the office of notary Willem Hasen behind the Stock Exchange in #Amsterdam. Cathalina, a Black woman, was to serve at the royal court Lüneburg, as chambermaid to 'her royal grace'.

So many great papers at #RenSoc25 in #Bristol. Just a few highlights for me... Laurie Atkinson on "Transnationality, intermediality, and print shop relations in The Shyp of folys of the worlde (1509)." 🧵 1/? #16thC #EarlyModern #skystorians @srsrensoc.bsky.social

6 July 1582: the Attorney General John Popham writes to Walsingham enclosing a seditious pamphlet which, in good early modern style, has been distributed by being left in the church porch at St Giles Cripplegate. It concerns two priests who were arraigned alongside Edmund Campion... 1/ #earlymodern

A snippet which may not fit into my talk at the @kingjamesconf.bsky.social: Lord Warden Thomas Scrope offering unsolicited advice to James VI that he should copy his grandfather James V and summarily execute his border thieves--a reference to the infamous execution of Johnnie Armstrong in 1530.

I had a fantastic time at ‪the @srsrensoc.bsky.social‬ #RenSoc25! My talk included the exceptional concord the Grahams of Esk agreed in 1598, that a panel of twelve arbitrators would meet once a week so that "all quarells & debaites shalbe decided”--ending decades of inter-family feuding.