After seeing her effigy countless times in textbooks, I finally visited the gisant of Eleanor of Aquitaine (and Henry II and Richard the Lionheart) in person at Fontevraud. The abbey suffered enormously during the French Revolution, but the restored space is still breathtaking. #medievalsky

Is it Christmas yet? #medievalsky @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Bodl. 264, f. 60r

When we say "no, everything hasn't been digitized," I need you to understand that we really mean is that virtually nothing has been digitized. This is because the realm of primary sources that historians use is incomprehensibly large.

8th-century glass reveals earliest history of Venetian glassmaking. phys.org/news/2025-12...

#medievalsky

Dec 23: Feast of Frithuberht (†766), bishop of Hagustaldes ham (Hexham). He also acted as the administrator of Lindisfarne while its bishop, Cynewulf, was in captivity. Alchmund succeeded him. 📸Kevin Wilbraham #medievalsky

Beatriz Bernal, a 16th-century Spanish novelist, wrote a fantasy novel about a female knight - with dragons, sorcerers, and a giant - decades before Don Quixote appeared. A children's adaptation, devised by children's author Diego Arboleda, is forthcoming! #fantasy #renaissance #earlymodern 💙📚

I came across a recipe that looks like an ancestor of #oplatky in Staindl's 1547 cookbook: wafers with a rosewater-scented spice filling. Be careful if you try the paper trick. www.culina-vetus.de/2025/12/20/s... #culinaryhistory #foodhistory #earlymodern #oblate

The submission deadline for the RSA Digital Innovation Awards is approaching! Applications will close January 12 for this award recognizing excellence in digital projects supporting the study of the Renaissance (1300–1700). www.rsa.org/page/Digital... #RenTwitter #earlymodern #digitalhumanties

#nuntastic Christmas choon.

𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗕𝘂𝗿𝗴𝗲𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲𝗮𝗻 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁 𝗧𝗿𝗮𝗱𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗗𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗶𝗯𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝗣𝗿𝗶𝗻𝘁𝘀 𝘃𝗶𝗮 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻-𝗠𝗼𝗿𝗲𝘁𝘂𝘀 𝗣𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗽 Karen Bowen, Dirk Imhof Sample Pages Available More Info: bit.ly/4j8Yx7K #BookHistory #EarlyModern #Antwerp #History #Printing

Passamezzo #AdventCalendar: Day 23 #Angels playing #violin and #lute. Details from a painting of the Adoration of the Shepherds by #GiovanniBattistaCrespi, who was born #onthisday in 1573 #earlymusic #earlymodern #otd #onthisdayinhistory #angelmusicians #iconography #historyofart

Also, great Burns bibliography compiled by Ilaria Abbondandolo. These kinds of bibliographies are invaluable historiographic tools down the line. Thanks so much @thesahgb.bsky.social! www.cambridge.org/core/service... #architecture #earlymodern #Renaissance #Palladio

Notice of upcoming lecture on 13 Jan. Sponsored by @csmbr-pisa.bsky.social. Of interest to #MedievalSky #EarlyModern #VastEarlyAmerica #EpiSky #histmed

Does anyone recall Dorothy Dunnett's historical novels-- e.g., the Lymond series? Are her novels still being read? Is there still an active fandom?

Final proofs off for Anselm Adornes: Travel, Trade, Cultural Exchange, and Intellectual Networks in Scotland, Bruges, and Jerusalem. It is so beautiful! Such a rewarding project. With enormous thanks to my co-editors @jillharrison1.bsky.social and Giovanna Guidicini www.brepols.net/products/IS-...

#Dunnett related

This is reminding me that I've been meaning to do a Dunnett reread. Maybe 2026 is the year.

I love the fucking internet, part 972964386: "One Night In Bangkok" arranged and performed as a 16th century chanson. youtu.be/i3jHv0GZB9U?...

What a fine treat!

Big recommendation for anything #dunnett Happy to welcome it back!

#Dunnettcontent A site for fans of Edinburgh in olden times - including some fascinating virtual reconstructions. www.old-edinburgh.com/blog Haven't had a chance to explore it properly yet but it'll give you a better idea of some of the locations mentioned in LC a bit nearer the time period.

In addition to her historical sagas, Dorothy Dunnett wrote a few books about Johnson Johnson, portrait painter and yacht owner. Dolly and the Singing Bird was the first one. I found it beautifully written and intriguingly plotted but a bit dated. 📚⚡️ 📚💙 happinessisabook.com/dolly-and-th...

Anything and everything by Dorothy Dunnett! Begin with Niccolo Rising, the opening novel of her 8-book exploration of the mid-15th Century Renaissance, or The Game of Kings, the opening volume of her famed Lymond Chronicles, set 100 years later. Buckle your swashes! #bestreads @dunnettcentral

#dunnett #dunnettcontent #historicalfiction #earlymodern This week’s #dunnettquote reflects the season and says goodbye for a holiday until January. Have a good time, a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

This essay (by Ronald Purser) is brilliant. "Thinking, like strength, develops through resistance. The more we delegate our mental strain to machines, the more we lose the capacity to think at all." YES!!! www.currentaffairs.org/news/ai-is-d...

#dunnettcontent For those wondering why the #dunnett_Advent_Calendar hasn't progressed, and there had not been a weekly #dunnettquote : Sorry, Berlin has severe internet outages since Monday. Unfortunately, I can't reach the server and can't upload anything.

Join our team, @mideastmedieval.bsky.social, @imems.bsky.social & colleagues at #IMC2026. Explore #fragmentology from methodology applied to manuscripts, case-studies on textile fragments or pieces of relics; Latin to vernacular; early to late medieval; East to West. #medievalmonday #medievalsky

#MedievalSky #AcademicSky @currentarchaeology.bsky.social

Thaniks! I'm diving into B Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" & tho I know a trick or two about The Black Death, her in-depth (in-death?) chapter on the mid-14th century iteration of the plague is fascinating. If you ever wished you could 'live' in a different time, this would not be it. #medievalsky

Christmas cake made ✅ List sent to Santa ✅ Don’t forget to book your Winter School place… #MedievalSky

The founding of a Cistercian abbey, a good investment ✠ #CistercianTradition #MonasticLife #MonasticTradition #MonasteryLife #abbey #abbeye #historyfacts #MedievalMonks #CistercianHistory #MedievalHistory #ChristianMonks #MedievalChurch #medievalsky ✠ bit.ly/4puPoc2

Forests to Farmland - The Age of Clearance in Medieval Europe ✠ #middleages #moyenage #MedievalHistory #MilitaryOrders #ReligiousHistory #HistoricalResearch #CrusaderStudies #medievalwarfare #medievalsky #AgeOfClearance #Agriculture #Development ✠ bit.ly/44XAH8Z

Notre Dame Australia has advertised a new scholarship for postgraduate studies in Jewish history valued at over AU$56,000 per annum. They are particularly interested in students who want to focus on medieval Jewish philosophy or intellectual history. #MedievalSky #EarlyModern #skystorians

At long last, a recipe: Chicken in a wine sauce, a kind of proto-coq au vin. Except with lots of spices and lemons. www.culina-vetus.de/2025/12/04/s... #culinaryhistory #foodhistory #earlymodern #chicken

Next Monday, 1-2pm, Séverine Angers takes us into the world of women’s patriotism during the American Revolutionary War and the Napoleonic Wars – told through intimate letters from military families. Register: www.eventbrite.com/e/ships-seaf... #earlymodern #history #letters #WarofIndependence 🗃️

From the Vianello et al. 2025 preprint: Figure 1. Venetian Quarantine Timeline and Early Cartographic Context. #MedievalSky #EarlyModern #EpiSky #Venice

Today, I found a long and detailed recipe for cooking a cake on a spit over the fire. It's not #Baumkuchen and not quite #langosz, but definitely related. www.culina-vetus.de/2025/12/07/a... #culinaryhistory #foodhistory #earlymodern #openfire #cake

Did I hear someone mention massive #earlymodern telescopes? de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datei:T...

And here is another rather big but still handy #earlymodern telescope, next to the giant one!, used by a man with one hand in 1673.

Interesting-looking new book from OUP by a former colleague of mine: #earlymodern #bookhistory academic.oup.com/book/60681

Are you a member of our COST Action PCPSce and would you like to carry out a Short-Term Scientific Mission (STSM)? More info on how to apply: pcps-ce.eu/grants/ @costprogramme.bsky.social #skystorians #EarlyModern #16thC #17thC

And not just funny, the apparently inconsequential Crouch is actually crucial to the story.

Yeah, first door is open!

@dunnettcentral.bsky.social !!

@dunnettcentral.bsky.social 👇

#dunnett #dunnettcontent #historicalfiction #earlymodern #medievalsky #Burgundy This week‘s #dunnettquote is featuring Charles the Bold

Instead of our weekly #dunnettquote, today we give a hint to the Dorothy Dunnett Advent Calendar 2025 www.geomaler.de/archiv/noel_...

A bumper WG is on its way to members: 52 pp (8 colour) including a talk by the Head of Maps at the National Library of Scotland; a project to catalogue notebooks from the Dunnett Archive; armour in C15 Bruges; retelling Macbeth; second part of priests and prophets; and Lymond and Strozzi in Calais.