We are delighted to announce a one day conference on Manumission in the Medieval Islamicate World – happening on 22 April, at the University of Leicester – which the DoSSE project has co-organised with the Markfield Institute. Email Erin [email protected] to register your free attendance.

What are humanities and social sciences research good for? Consider Enslaved.org: putting names to as many of the people trafficked during the Atlantic slave trade as possible. Insisting on the dignity of every human being. #Talkabouthumanities #talkaboutsocialsciences

How did late medieval debates shape the understanding of slavery and employment? Read up on Martin Schermaier's project here. 👉 buff.ly/n0dPpSF For an overview of all research projects, see the new Dependent: buff.ly/gi1LMwh @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de

Pleased to see that my latest article, entitled "The Alexamenos Graffito as Christian Self-Parody," is now out in NTS. In it I argue against the widely held view that this graffito is non-Christian in origin and that it could very well have been written by an enslaved Christian.

Just in time for Passover. Thanks to Moment Magazine and Jacob Wirtschafter for this review of my recent book from @princetonupress.bsky.social! momentmag.com/book-review-...

Fascinating new research on how we can identify the burial remains of female domestic servants in Qin dynasty China:

For this week on 'Slavery in Late Antiquity', students looked at the relationship of slavery with the Church, beginning with three excellent articles: [email protected] on 'servi servorum Dei' -Cassandra Casias on Augustine's sermons to slaveholders -Justin Pigott on slave ordination

Bluesky friends, I am happy to advertise a conference on ancient and medieval slave trading in the Mediterranean, co-organized by myself and Elizabeth Fentress, to be held in Toronto next month (April 15-17, 2026). Contact me via email (rather than here) or the email on the poster for more info!

The IHR's guide to its Monumenta Germaniae Historica collections (@monumenta.bsky.social) is a superb introduction for students of medieval German and European history. #medievalsky

🧯Hot off the press: Education in Religious Contexts of Late Antiquity (Cambridge Element) > free download until April 8! www.cambridge.org/core/element...

We are delighted to announce a one day conference on Manumission in the Medieval Islamicate World – happening on 22 April, at the University of Leicester – which the DoSSE project has co-organised with the Markfield Institute. Email Erin [email protected] to register your free attendance.

The well-known Late Roman “Zoninus Collar”. To mark a slave. See J.Trimble’s article among others. My hand at similar depth from camera in attempt to illustrate (embody?) how small it is.

And another press release from @unibonn.bsky.social, this time on our new project funded by @volkswagenstiftung.de The Nameless in History ...and in English www.uni-bonn.de/en/news/048-... @woodjamie.bsky.social

For Week 5 of Slavery in Late Antiquity, students researched and presented on different servile occupations: scribal and secretarial work; cooking and serving food; weaving and textile work; and viticultural labour.

Greatest honour of my career so far. As founding editor I'm proud to announce @edinburghup.bsky.social Studies in Late Roman History. The world's first book series exclusively dedicated to the core domain of Late Antiquity. Like to discuss proposals or manuscripts? Reach out! tinyurl.com/dujjeuth

An exciting new book from friend-of the-project, @lisakaarenbailey.bsky.social , which we're all looking forward to reading

📣 The Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS), in collaboration with the International Institute of Social History (IISH), invites researchers to examine coercive labour regimes through the analytical lens of the household. For more: buff.ly/tmQLUm3 @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de

New #OpenAccess book from @degruyterbrill.bsky.social: Slavery and the Shaping of the Premodern Muslim Family

Kicking off our project on The Nameless in History with Pia Wiegmink and @woodjamie.bsky.social in the beautiful surroundings of Schloss Herrenhausen @volkswagenstiftung.de

Our next seminar will be this Wednesday 4 March with Niall Ó Súilleabháin (King's College London), speaking on 'Archives of Servitude in Post-Carolingian Francia'. All welcome - please register here! IHR Wolfson NB02, 5.30pm.

Looking forward to seeing friend-of-the-project Niall give his paper on post-Carolingian servitude at the IHR this Wednesday! We were lucky enough to get a preview of Niall's fascinating research from a lecture he gave at Leicester last year, so we know his paper will be fantastic.

For Week 4 of 'Slavery in Late Antiquity', students read April Pudsey and Ville Vuolanto's chapter on 'Enslaved Children in Roman Egypt: Experiences from the Papyri'. They then searched for further evidence for the lives of child slaves on the papyri.info database.

It's great to see more work on slavery and medieval Islamic households! Looking forward to reading this:

📕 Congratulations to Cristina de la Puente, Karen Moukheiber & Serena Tolino on their new publication "Slavery and the Shaping of the Premodern Muslim Family", Vol. 28 in the DSS Series. Now available via Open Access. 👉 More: buff.ly/IQbiYXr @unibonn.bsky.social @dfg.de @degruyterbrill.bsky.social

Theodore of Mopsuestia was the most important theological authority for the Church of the East, often mislabeled as "Nestorians"

We are pleased to share that our research associate, Sofia Puchkova, has published an authoritative entry on Theodore of Mopsuestia for the DHGE – Louvain Dictionary of Church History (vol 34, fascicule 199b-200) www.brepols.net/products/IS-...

Week 3 of Slavery in Late Antiquity focused on material & visual culture. Students read articles about three different sources: Jennifer Trimble on slave collars; Marice Rose on slaves & mistresses in art; Avigail Manekin-Bamberger on the incantation bowls of Jewish households in the Sasanian Empire

Would also be very interested to know this, #medievalsky

For Week 2 of 'Slavery in Late Antiquity', on the origins of the enslaved, students read and discussed Kyle Harper's chapter on the Roman slave supply, St Patrick's Confessio & Epistula, a slave sale contract, and Augustine's letter (10) on slavers kidnapping children.

ICYMI: Bart Danon’s (University of Groningen, @facultyofartsug.bsky.social) excellent new book *Wealth, Office and Rank in Roman Italy* (@universitypress.cambridge.org) is available as a free digital download ⬇️ www.cambridge.org/core/books/w...

"A truly sensational find" made by my friend and colleague Adrian C. Pirtea 👀👇 #Syriac #ChristianArabic #ChristianEast

I had a great time starting teaching a third-year undergrad module on 'Slavery in Late Antiquity' today. We talked about the controversy over Sarah Ruden's translation of servus as 'slave' not 'servant' and dominus as 'master' not 'lord' in her translation of Augustine's Confessions

This includes several discussions of slavery in early Judaism, including in a fascinating article by Carmen Palmer on the legal status of wet-nurses

The IMC programme out - the DoSSE project is sponsoring four sessions on slavery (in Merovingian, Visigothic, Greek, Arabic, Persian, Armenian, and Venetian sources) on Tuesday 7th July. Details attached.

Very pleased for our University of Leicester colleague Jessica Hendy-Hodgkinson, whose fantastic research on a nun's doodles has just been published in Early Medieval Europe and is rightly being shared widely

Today on the blog, why the Carolingian empire wasn’t the worst place in the early medieval world to be Jewish. Featuring trade, slavery, and, most joyous of all, taxes! #medievalsky #jewishhistory salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2026/01/08/l...

𝗪𝗼𝗺𝗲𝗻 𝗶𝗻 𝗟𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗔𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗘𝗮𝗿𝗹𝘆 𝗠𝗶𝗱𝗱𝗹𝗲 𝗔𝗴𝗲𝘀 𝗦𝘁𝘂𝗱𝗶𝗲𝘀 𝗳𝗿𝗼𝗺 𝗪𝗲𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻 𝗘𝘂𝗿𝗼𝗽𝗲 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗡𝗼𝗿𝘁𝗵 𝗔𝗳𝗿𝗶𝗰𝗮 Éric Fournier, Maijastina Kahlos (eds) More Info: bit.ly/49KnjI8 #Women #Antiquity #Medieval #Womensstudies #Europe #Africa #History #Medievalsky #Medievalists

Very happy to have received these three super books for Christmas! ~James

Soon to appear, Eric Fournier and Maijastina Kahlos (eds.), Women and Gender in the Post-Roman Kingdoms, see www.brepols.net/products/IS-... and www.academia.edu/145456266/Wo... (incl. my paper on "Secular Women in the Lombard Kingdom“).

🚨CfP: Land and Power in the Late Roman World. Deadline: 11 Jan 26, event 29 Jun-1 July 26. Come join the Land & Loyalty team in sunny Tubingen to discuss why land was so important in the late Roman world. ECRs especially solicited! research.st-andrews.ac.uk/landloyalty/...

Day 1 of “The ‘Other’ and ‘Empire’ in Christianity: Postcolonial Readings of Late Antique Literature,” a small conference/workshop organised by Classics and Ancient History at Durham University (www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...). This has been a superb meeting so far.

🎉 Today I defended my dissertation and passed with summa cum laude. The title is "Dependent Lives In and Beyond Archives: Enslaved People in Sephardic Jewish Households in Early Modern Bridgetown, Barbados (1654-1800)." The abstract is below, and I hope to publish it soon.

Our research associate Dr Sofia Puchkova co-organised this fantastic, free-to-attend conference in Durham on 'Postcolonial Readings of Late Antique Literature'. The first sessions took place today and there will be more tomorrow. See the programme below:

Very happy for our DoSSE project alumnus Seth M. Stadel, whose new translation of 'The Catalogue of Books of ‘Abdisho‘ bar Brikha' is praised by Giorgia Nicosia in the Journal of Early Christian Studies as "a tool of lasting importance for everyone working on Syriac literature"

Now updated with an extra, 1st century BC example of a slave sale from Roman Egypt, and with references to parallel concepts of property ownership in Aramaic and Arabic documents:

"Whatever you want to do with me, may you have the power of doing..." So reads a Merovingian contract for selling oneself into slavery. But where might this concept of slave ownership have come from? Find out more from our new blog post: www.dosseproject.com/from-francia...

Two fully paid PhD positions at Lund University! One in Hebrew Bible and the other in Jewish studies, focus late antiquity. Gorgeous location and gorgeous colleagues. Don't sleep on this! (Set filter to HT to access these two in particular.) lunduniversity.lu.se/vacancies

well, what the heck. it's the tuesday before thanksgiving, and whoever is on here deserves a treat: the first new translation I've posted in a long while: the Life and Martyrdom of Susanna: andrewjacobs.org/translations...