Add to this worrying list “Library Washing” - persuading very prestigious university institutions to contribute their digital library collections to OpenAI’s model, to lend legitimacy, in exchange for a handful of (reduced cost!) magic AI beans.

Rose Walker on The Aftermath of Liturgical Reform in Twelfth-Century Iberia. The first @ihr.bsky.social 25/26 History of Liturgy Seminar Monday 27 October. Do join us! In person audiences esp welcome but you'll also be able to register for the livestream soon: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Is the Book of Kells from Pictland rather than Ireland? Great to see this @theguardian.com piece about @victoriawhitworth.bsky.social's new book on Kells, published by @headofzeus.bsky.social next month: www.bloomsbury.com/uk/book-of-k... www.theguardian.com/books/2025/s...

Delighted to see @victoriawhitworth.bsky.social's Dust and Pomegranates @bloomsburybooksuk.bsky.social shortlisted for the inaugural Ilse Schwepcke prize. Startlingly evocative of my own experience of travelling alone in my twenties. www.ilseschwepckeprize.co.uk/2025-shortli...

We've been so committed to reducing the very friction that makes learning possible

The International Energy Agency estimates that AI tools like ChatGPT will soon equal Japan’s electricity consumption. Last week, Oxford researchers reported that climate change has been responsible for 1,700 heat-related deaths in a single European region. www.ox.ac.uk/news/2025-09...

Professor Freya Johnston, Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Education, added: “Generative AI is also helping us to explore new ways of engaging with students, alongside our renowned face-to-face teaching and tutorial model.” www.cherwell.org/2025/09/19/o...

Incandescent.

This looks fun - Butser Book Festival: www.butserancientfarm.co.uk/butser-liter...

Happy to share that my wonderful colleagues organise a hybrid conference on the use and understanding of the Lord’s Prayer at @unituebingen.bsky.social which is also attendable online! You can find all information on this webpage konferenz.libripendis.eu#programm made by @jbwaagmeester.bsky.social

Eketorp, a spectacular fortress of the Nordic Iron Age www.labrujulaverde.com/en/2025/09/e...

The latest @timeteam.bsky.social podcast features @hugh-willmott.bsky.social's exciting excavations at #cerneabbey. A teaser for a longer programme to come soon! (plus cameos from Kate Adie... and me not quite rocking it in wellies 😜) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL1u...

The @oxembi.bsky.social is hosting a special lecture, Long Distance Travel from Early Medieval Britain by Prof @francescatinti.bsky.social & a workshop on Global Britain with Jörg Drauschke, Maria Duggan, @caitlinrgreen.bsky.social, @jk-viking.bsky.social & others. 14 & 15 October. All welcome.

There's a new book by Martin Carver about the extraordinary project to build a copy of the ship that was buried in Sutton Hoo mound 1. Published by @boydellandbrewer.bsky.social and available from saxonship.org/product/book...

Our hybrid lecture series, 'Silk Roads: Empire and Everyday Voices in the Medieval Islamicate East', with @oxlifelonglearning.bsky.social starts Monday 13 October. For more information, and to book, visit: bit.ly/SilkRoadslectures #skystorian #silkroads #lifelonglearning #studyatoxford

'Just 27% of mothers achieve tenure, compared with 48% of fathers and 46% of other women.'

The latest @timeteam.bsky.social podcast features @hugh-willmott.bsky.social's exciting excavations at #cerneabbey. A teaser for a longer programme to come soon! (plus cameos from Kate Adie... and me not quite rocking it in wellies 😜) www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL1u...

On Saturday, I'll be talking about Sutton Hoo at Sutton Hoo... well, Woodbridge. There are also tours of the site, the replica ship & West Stow. Details of the @archaeologyuk.bsky.social event below 👇

Looking for a unique archaeological experience? Join us in Suffolk, 20 - 21 Sept, for the CBA Groups Weekend 2025 from CBA East: Sutton Hoo, West Stow, a ship build, and a medieval history talk, all in one weekend. 👉 shorturl.at/7X8n1

Eleven years ago, after Harriet had died, we walked out of St George's Tooting and sat on a bench as a tremendous storm thundered around us. #HSJpatientsafety

This looks hopeful! An unwatered down Hillsborough Law, if that is what we'll get, would do much to help patient safety in this country. www.gov.uk/government/n... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Good to see East Kent (and Yeovil!) among others on this list of Trusts to be reviewed by Baroness Amos & her team. I'll be discussing maternity care with @dockendenltd.bsky.social, @shaunlintern.bsky.social & @jamestitcombe.bsky.social at the @hsj.co.uk Congress tmw. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Civaux: a massive, Merovingian cemetery, still in use today. An astonishing site.

I've just been talking with a colleague in one of the fields I work in about organizing a call for papers who said: 'Speaking from my perspective, there just aren't any graduate students left...'

"hobbyist research"

Our new Spring 2026 season has arrived — epic stories, big names, unforgettable theatre 💫 Co-Artistic Directors Daniel Evans and Tamara Harvey bring together a season where the familiar is reimagined, and the new is discovered.

And in other news... ! 'The RSC's 2026 season will also see Hunt and writer-performer Mark Gatiss make their RSC debuts... Harvey and Evans said Sir Kenneth's return will be a "celebration of theatre-making on an epic scale". www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Rarely good to read news stories that read like material for future historians. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

A polissoir for polishing handaxes that's at least 4000 - and perhaps as many as 7000 years old. Found in Saint-Arnoult-de-Vendome and now in Nantes museum. I can't quite explain what it is about them that I find so exciting - even when they are in a museum rather than on a mountain side.

Sir Bob Worcester, former Chancellor of Kent Uni, has died. He was pretty keen on medieval stuff - as we discovered. A top pollster, he was also lord of Allington Castle - the seminar he gave on Allington wins the prize for longest-handout-I've-ever-encountered! www.thetimes.com/uk/obituarie...

Such evocative images. Hope I can get there soon. 'Masons work to construct the Chapel Tower’s stone ceiling vault over a wooden framework without the use of iron or concrete.' ©Guédelon

New #Skystorians job alert! The impressive VCH Herefordshire project have been fundraising hard for some time and are now able to advertise two contributing editor roles which will work towards completing work histories of Ledbury and the Malvern Hills. Details in the link below. 1/2

A princely belt from early C7th Kent — thanks to member Phil Ratcliffe. Replica of the Faversham buckle (found in c19th & displayed in the British Museum @britishmuseum.bsky.social) by Danegeld Historic Jewellery. Belt by member @aedthompson.bsky.social woven from plant dyed wools, on leather.

Martin Biddle's excavations at St Alban's Chapter House have now been published. A fantastic achievement for everyone involved. Please @archaeopress.bsky.social can you depost the hard copy in @bodleian.ox.ac.uk so I can read it! www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress...

BREAKING 🚨 @drjogrady.bsky.social on Greenwich/Kent “merger”: “This isn’t a merger, it’s a takeover. Severe financial pressure is driving this & staff & students are left overlooked, overworked & ignored. Govt must intervene before the crisis in HE worsens.” www.ucu.org.uk/article/1417...

And so it begins... Kent & Greenwich... 'Kent has one other campus, in Canterbury, about 30 miles (48km) from Medway' does not really capture things, though! www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Growing up in the 1980s in a house where the soundtrack was Radio 4 did have some highlights - and two of those earworms are currently on BBC Sounds: Radio Active... and @stephenfry.bsky.social's Delve Special... www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

I've started a new series on my blog where I retell some of the lesser-known stories from early medieval England. The latest (seaxeducation.substack.com/p/bothelms-b...) is about a monk, a broken arm, and the powers of divine moss. Do check it out, and maybe one day I can afford my rent!

A bronze key in the Musee Doree, Nantes, thought to date from the ninth century, and found by the door of the crypt of the church of St Philbert-de-grand-lieu. Repeatedly subject to viking raids, the monks left the abbey in 858. Did they drop this key in their haste?!

Mothers, sons & their shared inner worlds... a detail from the statue in honour of Jules Verne in the botanical gardens in Nantes.

In other monastic news, a convent on Magdalen Road in East Oxford has been put up for sale for £12m. The order of All Saints Sisters of the Poor, established in 1851 but latterly with only five nuns, has moved back to London. The site includes a 38-bed care home plus friary and new convent building.

A call for papers on 'Ritual Artefacts & their images for medieval liturgy' in Madrid next January with special focus on 'three main categories of liturgical artefacts' ritual objects (such as reliquaries, crosses, censers), vestments and liturgical books. eventos.urjc.es/137188/secti...

Sometimes it takes a while. I *finally* read this. Bede's 'under-representation of womens' social participation reflects an aspiration towards their actual marginalization'. At the synod of Whitby Hild is 'seen & not heard', 'the silence imposed on Hild in Bede's narrative is scarcely credible...'.

The asking price for Wytham Abbey, a Grade I-listed manor house just northwest of Oxford with parts dating back to the 15th century, has been reduced from £15m to £5.95m. The house is being sold by an organisation that promoted “effective altruism”, linked with disgraced financier Sam Bankman-Fried.

A day of papers to mark the 500th anniversary of the foundation of 'Cardinal College' College on Oxford: 4 October 10-5 with @dunning.bsky.social @drdavidrundle.bsky.social Sarah Foot, Mishtooni Bose among others. www.chch.ox.ac.uk/events/saint...

Just back from Nantes - a revelation! - what a playful, creative city. Although many medieval buildings were destroyed by C19th planners, they've made amends by investing in art, play and public spaces. The centrepiece is Les Machines de L'ile. 1/ www.lesmachines-nantes.fr/en/the-proje...

In Poitiers, lugging luggage on our way to the station, I crossed the road to read a plaque, as you do, and it turned out to be... Foucault's house! And a pretty fancy one it is/was too.

My academic grandmother, Barbara Harvey, died earlier this month; there's a short tribute to her from @somervillecollege.bsky.social here: www.some.ox.ac.uk/news/barbara...

Thinking about volunteering in archaeology or heritage? We’ve just launched our brand new Volunteering page, bringing together placements, digs, and volunteering roles in heritage from across the UK. And the best part? Search by region to find opportunities near you! 👉

The most powerful conversation I’ve had in my Life Lessons from History series: this chat with @helengittos.bsky.social‬ about the importance of ritual in our lives, and I guess how we cope with our deaths, really made me think. Hope it does the same for you. open.substack.com/pub/historye...