“…some of the most compelling women characters you’re likely to find in print. [… Dorothy] Dunnett’s female characters have both feet firmly planted in a sixteenth-century world” Historian @yvonneseale.bsky.social on the women of THE LYMOND CHRONICLES #BookWormSat 💙📚 yvonneseale.org/blog/2019/05...

In class today, a student asked me how many Holy Prepuces (the supposed circumcised foreskin of the infant Jesus, venerated as a relic) were floating around in medieval Europe. I didn't know the exact number, looked it up, and stumbled across this fun fact. Surely one of history's weirder jobs?

So pleased to have contributed to this article in the latest issue of JMMS on cartulary editing and analysis! doi.org/10.1484/J.JM...

My current (Catherine Connolly, second from left) and former presidents (Mary McAleese, Michael D. Higgins, Mary Robinson) displayed a real commitment to colour coordination at today's presidential inauguration.

Thrilled to have written something for "Childhood and the Irish" (ed. @salvadorryan.bsky.social), a collection which explores so many aspects of growing up in Ireland over the centuries. My contribution is about piecing together the life of a foundling ancestor. wordwellbooks.com/index.php?ro...

Would you say that in Ireland we have a "tea-ceful" transfer of power? ... I'll see myself out.

Something I do at least once a year, before I teach a class on a specific topic in the history of antisemitism in medieval Europe: check to see if a certain archdiocese's website still has a page stating that one of the blood libel myths is a historical event. Yup, still there! It's November 2025.

Built in the early 13th century for the Conti di Segni (the family of Pope Innocent III), the Torre has survived multiple earthquakes—will it survive this? I very much hope the injured and trapped workers are all rescued and recover speedily. The video is so unnerving to watch.

Autocorrect: saving you from a dire fate at the hands of the scribe-tormenting Tutivillus? "Tutivillus complains that “I muste eche day [...] brynge my master a thousande pokes full of faylynges, & of neglygences in syllables and wordes… else I must be sore beten." daily.jstor.org/tutivillus-i...

And with a bigger percentage of first-preference votes than even Dev managed back in the '50s.

A neat tool I just came across: Viabundus, a digital road map of northern Europe 1350-1650, that lets you calculate contemporary travel routes/times. In 1500, going Amiens → Köln by horse took almost 7 days and 13 toll payments. #medievalsky www.landesgeschichte.uni-goettingen.de/handelsstras...

Sometimes a translator's name will make you pause and blink at the title page.

A heads up: the platform I've been using to host my searchable database of #medieval Premonstratensian sisters is ending its free hosting plan on short notice. Since I can't justify spending $100/month (!) on this, or find a viable alternative, it'll go away on Oct 1. yvonneseale.org/atlas/sisters

One of my all-time favourite series of books!

It was always a "real thing," it just turns out to be a little bit older - and therefore more important - than originally thought. This article demonstrates how the word "copy" can be misinterpreted, especially in the context of medieval manuscript studies. 1/2

"The papal privilege issued in 1195 by Pope Celestine III is one of the few sources that allows for an insight into the history of St Mary’s, Clonard, and Agnes Ní Máelshechlainn’s tenacity in defending her monastery from expropriation during the English conquest of Ireland."

Going down a series of rabbit holes following yesterday's events led me to the discovery that as well as the more well known "Conclave" (2024) there is also "The Conclave" (2006), an intensely early 2000s made-for-TV-on-a-shoestring-budget movie about the papal conclave of 1458.

I don't think anyone had Prevost very high on the lists of the papabili—wow. What a moment to get to witness, the first pope from the United States. (The first pope to be a baseball and/or American football fan?)

I've updated my " #Premonstratensian Order in the Middle Ages" bibliography site. It now contains 6,250 entries & covers: — Secondary lit on the order, 1480s-2025 — 22 languages from Basque to Swedish — Array of digital & print sources — Themes, houses & individuals www.geneseo.edu/researchweb/...

Today at Geneseo, a community rally in support of science and higher ed in general—3:30-6pm in Bailey Hall! History Department faculty will be there.

"Switzerland’s Abbey of Saint Gall has agreed to lend 17 manuscripts to the National Museum of Ireland ... for a landmark exhibition that will combine artefacts and parchments to recreate a sense of Ireland’s golden age as the “land of saints and scholars." #medievalsky On my summer to-see list!

The May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine @historyextra.bsky.social is out, and includes a piece by me on the famed relationship of Abelard and Heloise, and why it can't just be simply summed up as a love affair. www.historyextra.com/magazine/cur...

Agree with the author at a minimum that a Battle of Clontarf movie or miniseries would be wonderful, but I feel like so much would depend on whether they truly get that Beard looking Silken.

Get thee to a nunnery ✝️

"The 15th-century Arma Christi was found in a shoebox filled with leaflets from the 1980s at Bar Convent, by Dr Hannah Thomas, while she was cataloguing the religious order's collection." www.bbc.com/news/article...

While working on slides for my classes this week, I came across this portrait of the 13th-c. pope John XXI, and I am both agog at and charmed by the luxuriant mustachios that the artist bestowed on him. Poirot is envious! (Portrait: Unknown artist, 16th c., now Gallery of the Archbishops of Braga.)

Sad sad story about the ransacking of Sudan's national museum by RSF fighters. Thousands of artefacts are gone. The museum "held mummies dating from 2500BC, making them among the oldest and archaeologically most important in the world." www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...

Elizabeth Elstob: the pioneering first female Anglo-Saxonist historytoday.com/first-female... by @yvonneseale.bsky.social [Feb 2016]

"It may come as a surprise [...] that one of the world's rarest pieces of Chinese porcelain resides permanently in Dublin. Made in China around 1300AD, it is the earliest example of Chinese porcelain known to have reached Europe and was owned by royalty for centuries."

A long shot, but would anyone have a working link to/copy of the TG4 Finné documentary on the Wood Quay excavations? It's supposed to have unlimited availability on TG4's site but no longer plays (www.tg4.ie/en/player/pl...) and I've had no response from production company. #medievalsky #spéirghorm

"What do the angelic forces of the Heavenly Host have to do with orgasms? The answer, according to the 12th-century philosopher and theologian Maimonides, was simple. Some invisible forces that caused movement could be explained by God working through angels." #medievalsky

A reminder that @sunygeneseo.bsky.social is hiring a Special Collections Librarian! We're excited to have a new colleague join us here in scenic Western NY. For guaranteed consideration, applications must be received by this Friday, March 28, 2025.

'A non-agricultural economy can certainly be seen as the distinction between urban and rural. However, boundaries between agricultural villages and commercial towns were far from clear-cut in the medieval era' Joe Chick asks, 'What is a town?' #skystorians #medievalsky #urbanhistory

Spring has been dragging its feet getting here, but in the current (political) climate, the clouds and wind—& occasional fleeting glimpses of bluer skies ahead—felt appropriate for a trip to Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, to see the final resting places of Frederick Douglass & Susan B. Anthony.

SUNY Geneseo is hiring a Special Collections Librarian to oversee the SCs/archives in our recently and beautifully renovated Milne Library. I'm on the hiring committee, so happy to answer general questions about the position. #jobfairy jobs.geneseo.edu/postings/5137

Glad to see follow-up to what was an awful attack on one of Dublin's best-known #medieval sites, but intrigued by the language used by prosecution/judge to describe (non-saintly) remains: "irreplaceable", "priceless", "ancient relics." Hinting at wobbly line b/n human remains & historical objects?

"Ancient human remains uncovered in a Co Derry bog are believed to belong to a young woman who lived around 2,000 years ago. [... They] likely belonged to a woman aged between 17 and 22 years old, and has been hailed as "one of the most important archaeological discoveries on the island of Ireland".

Hommage à Robert Moore, par Julien Théry www.lhistoire.fr/hommage/robe...

Today I am looking at precious stones & their properties: in one of my Scottish manuscripts, but also drawing in one of my favourite illuminations in Latini's Le livre du Trésor. Each stone is paired with a personification of virtue & set in a Rouen street scene [Bibliothèque de Genève, Ms. fr. 160]

Tomorrow, 1 Feb, marks the beginning of spring and the celebration of #LáFhéileBríde! This image from 1966 is of St Brigid's Well near Mullingar, thought to be a place of celebration during #Imbolc. Deposited in DRI by @dublincitylibs.bsky.social doi.org/10.7486/DRI.... #ExploreYourArchive

For the day that's in it: St Brigit of Kildare, appropriately depicted with an animal companion 😊; she is often linked with husbandry, milking & churning. An early Life describes her churning, identified as women's work MS Ludwig IX 3 (The Ruskin Hours), f. 106 (J Paul Getty Museum, Public Domain)

Lá Fhéile Bríde sona daoibh! Happy St Brigit's Day, feast day of one of Ireland's patron saints & the country's traditional 1st day of spring. I've a grá (affection) for Brigit as a historical figure & because as a child I was taught by Brigidine Sisters. Bibl. mun. de Valenciennes, MS 838, f.63v

The very concept of a $25m, 12 bedroom, 12.7k ft² house is of course grotesque, but I find myself begrudgingly respecting how clearly the owners don't care about things like "resale value" or "what the neighbours think" or "cohesion" or "taste." www.zillow.com/homedetails/...

I'm saddened to hear of the passing of Michael Longley. It's more than 20 years now since I studied his poetry for the Leaving Cert, and yet there are still passages and images from his work that have stuck with me all that time. www.rte.ie/news/2025/01...

Always relieved when I vanquish the department printer at syllabus-printing time. This semester’s courses: Vikings, second half of the medieval survey, and medieval women’s history. Technically ready though I still have the “what have I forgotten?” feeling.

Craven behaviour. If this lies outside of the scope of the AHA's mission and purpose, then it has no purpose at all.

New blog post: Why I'm Saying No to Generative AI. (Does what it says on the tin.) catherinedenial.org/blog/uncateg...

My home county of Laois was one of the parts of Ireland most affected by the weekend's uncommonly hefty fall of #sneachta. You'd want to be a hardy person to be up on the Rock of Dunamase today, where the wind is brisk at the best of times! The Rock is topped by the ruins of a 12th-c. castle. 📷 RTÉ