My splendid translator in France, Mikael Cabon, asked me to support an urgent campaign, launching today, opposing AI being used instead of people. I do so willingly, and feel same on behalf of audiobook readers and bookworld artists. I hope readers worldwide will show their agreement.

I want to send *both* books to someone who'd find my work useful! (PP in paperback, GR in hardback—note it's also available as a free PDF! library.oapen.org/handle/20.50...) If that's you, just *quote-post* this thread, and I'll pick a recipient next week 😊 (To share without entering, just repost!)

"Can I call you back? I'm stuck in an O at the moment." St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 711; Abbreviatio Decreti "Quoniam egestas"; second half of the 12th century; p.18 (e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)

Dear Pew Research, Please ask if people believe in the Parousia. They’ll all say No because they don’t know that word but it’s a better question and the results will be funny. Sincerely, The CTSA

This is a problem.

I'm sorry, worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable permission to my voice and likeness? For what now? In any manner for any purpose??? This is in academia/.edu's new ToS, which you're prompted to agree to on login. Anyway I'll be jumping ship. You can find my stuff at hcommons.org.

'sickos' vocitantur, de eo quod per fenestram ridentes, 'ha ha ha... sic!' clamant -Isidorus Hispalensis

While this is interestin, it seems a bit much to go from "metal production continued in one former urban centre" to (as is being suggested here) "there was no major economic shock after Roman rule," in the face of all the other archaeological evidence suggesting that there was, of whatever rapidity.

One thing I wish would come up in common discourse on justifying why it's good to learn ancient languages is it gets you used to the idea that a dictionary entry is a repertory of a lot of meanings which are defined by lots of contexts and we often don't know exactly what all or any of them mean

Absolute nightmare. Please do not let this happen @mark-carney.bsky.social As a Canadian citizen I am absolutely horrified by this proposal. This is not Canada is about 🇨🇦 www.cbc.ca/news/canada/....

New Wyclif polemic discovered! Only 250 words long, but not obviously detached from a larger work. It isn’t ascribed to him in the manuscript (no titulus or colophon) but the style is recognizably his. I’m posting it here because the content is eerily topical. #medievalLatin #medievalSky #genAI

I finally got my author copies. I'm building a nice little collection in my office.

INDO-EUROPEAN #1: *h₁ey, *knh₃ck *knh₃ck INDO-EUROPEAN #2: *kʷo's *thh₂re? IE 1: *Larry IE 2: *Larry *kʷo? IE 1: Laryngeal! 😁 IE 2: ... IE 1: *gh₂ddit? 🤣 IE 2: that was so bad I think we need to all get in our chariots and head out in all directions just to get as far away as we can from you

Divination may seem silly but it's been done throughout history! There are several forms: Sortes Biblicae, opening the Bible at random Sortes Vergilianae, opening the Aeneid at random Sortes AI, asking a regurgitated pile of slop whether you should add sulfuric acid to your chili for an extra kick

Dismayed to see the imminent demise of Digizeitschriften (like JSTOR for German-language journals). Anyone know the backstory? www.digizeitschriften.de/page/faq

Been rather a long time in the making, but finally have proofs!

Sadly in the case of Latin many people *don’t* realize this, even though it’s the obvious corollary of the original point about the accessibility of European history. This drum needs constant banging for strategic purposes to prevent the discipline(s) from becoming a joke: bsky.app/profile/brun...

Because, unfortunately, his videos get a lot of traction, for my sins I'm now watching Rowsell's attempt at a 'debunking' of Sayer et al. 2025. I'm ten minutes in out of 60 I've identified what is 1 certain and 2 possible (tbc) major, basic factual errors on his part that directly hit his argument.

I am one of the 14 authors who chose to leave the Polari Prize, and I find myself frustrated and saddened at the way this entire story has been represented. 1/

My book is out! Medieval Responses to Ovid's Exile, with Cambridge UP @universitypress.cambridge.org. I am so grateful to the friends, family, colleagues, librarians and archivists who helped along the way. Nervous and excited to see it in the world! www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...

Been rather a long time in the making, but finally have proofs!

The paper on “Updown Girl”, a fascinating find buried in the supplementary data from Gretzinger et al. 2024, is finally out!

Proofs!

apocalyptic literature is like,

The brilliant @lmbd1418.bsky.social has suggested people write to the Home Secretary Yvette Cooper re: my case. If you could spare five minutes, she's created a draft letter which you can use to send to [email protected]. I appreciate everyone's support. ❤️ docs.google.com/document/d/1...

French Revolution document rifle continues! Let’s just not think too much about what these personal papers might be stained with eh 😬😬😬

OMG PEOPLE! I have the BL hack of all BL hacks. Why didn't this occur to me before? It turns out the Wayback Machine has snapshots of MS metadata from the old Digitised Manuscripts site. I tried it for the Benedictional of St. Æthelwold, in honor of his day, and lo! web.archive.org/web/20140305...

It is not reassuring to learn that a clerk at Bonn's Ausländeramt (the office which processes citizenship applications), appears to have used terminology commonly only found among Reichsbürger (a far-right conspiracy theory that denies the legitimate existence of the present German state)

For the fans of the eleventh century (there are dozens of us!), here's a 30% pre-order discount from @oxunipress.bsky.social on my book, due out next month.

My last living musical hero is still my hero but unfortunately no longer living. RIP to the great, great Mr. Tom Lehrer.

The incomparable Tom Lehrer has died 🥲

Some pertinent lines from a 16th-century German poet who knew what's what (trans. Joy Wiltenburg, Crime and Culture in Early Modern Germany)

We ran a randomized controlled trial to see how much AI coding tools speed up experienced open-source developers. The results surprised us: Developers thought they were 20% faster with AI tools, but they were actually 19% slower when they had access to AI than when they didn't.

Upon arrival, my host - an ill favoured, short, swarthy man - affected not to have received my missive via codexing dot com concerning my requirement of early check-in. O blessed before, now how thrice blessed are my usual stays at the Radisson! Liutprand 🇮🇹 589 reviews (average 1.2) Travelled alone

when your boss throws a pizza party and it's the fourth century

For the medieval map lover in your life...

🎨 The Translated Texts for Historians Colouring Books is available now! To celebrate 40 years of the iconic series, we have collected a selection of Mark Humphries' incredible line drawings that adorn the covers of TTH volumes for readers to colour in. Discover more here ⬇️ bit.ly/TTHColouring...

Ok, you find it funny or interesting why some centuries are "long" and others are "short" and why do historians use terms like "the Middle Ages" or "the Renaissance" but get cross about it all the time? And keep forbidding things like "the Dark Ages"? Isn't it weird? Well, no. 1/

While I was exploring the fully digitized Dijon BM Ms 130, I found this doggo either napping in or biting a Q on fol. 107r. Whole MS here: patrimoine.bm-dijon.fr/pleade/img-v...

hey so a bit of news. I can now officially say that as my grant ends I'll be starting this summer as Director and Senior Specialist (cataloguer, really) at TextManuscripts, a department of Les Enluminures. I'm still a bit overcome. I get to stay in medieval studies.

So we've heard that Francis spent twenty minutes praying in the Pauline Chapel and it took an hour from smoke to balcony, so this guy is frankly under pressure to do the same so as not to look dangerously keen I guess Boss move from Francis in retrospect

Reuping this now relevant thread on habemus papam formulae!

the most amazing thing about this is how it's almost word for word what we've been saying would happen, right down to the crushing irony -- invisible to the student "author" -- of slop essays on critical pedagogy

If we're *really* splitting hairs here, there is a third grammatically unusual, but well attested (back to Aulus Gellius) option, the nominative: "Et imposuit Simoni nomen Petrus." Cf. all 18th century popes on the list 'Habemus papam' wikipedia list and most recently in 1922.

Highly specific request for #medievalsky ! Does anyone have a physical copy of Cord J. Whitaker's Black Metaphors who can look up a page number for me? The ebook, she is lacking essential features. 🫠

It is an open secret among medievalists that Thomas Aquinas discovered Easter was actually the day when God threw a magnificently elaborate gender reveal for Jesus (they/them)

He has also set up his own website where his entire catalogue can be found (it's also been public domain since 2007). tomlehrersongs.com

Huge news on the @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social digitization front: both the Selden Acts and Hatton 48 are now available! I haven't spent time with Hatton 48 yet, but I just started opening the Selden Acts (MS. Selden Supra 30) at random and will drop a few cool things into a 🧵. #medievalsky

Today is the feast of Isidore of Seville! Several MSS to share of the 1000+ that survive; I'll put them in separate posts. St. Gall 226 consists of surviving leaves of a *papyrus* codex from later 7th-c. southern France! This is the only papyrus MS in the St. Gall Stiftsbibliothek. 🧵#medievalsky