*David Attenborough‘s voice* As the sun rises on this early July morning hundreds of medievalists begin their annual migration to Leeds. Scientists have not fully understood this ritual but it seems to be crucial for the survival of the whole species. Intensive days of medievaling will follow.

www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DSD005/d... #medievalsky

This an official Vatican photograph of Leo at Lampedusa, Italy - one of the world’s heaviest migrant sites - where he went this morning to pray for migrants who died at sea. This is after turning down the offer to come to the United States.

"Norway is imposing a near ban on the use of generative AI tools by elementary school pupils while also restricting their ​use in the education of older children to prevent a ‌negative impact on learning" Sometimes, good policymaking is incredibly simple. www.reuters.com/technology/n...

Pope Leo to the SSPX

Job Alert! Two-year postdoctoral position (100%, Jan 2027-Dec 2029) on the biological & social history of enteric pathogens in post-war France: euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/448818 (1/4)

The fact that this article from Associated Press in NPR doesn't mention that the original Lefebvrist tendency has had consistent decades long links to nazis and spreading antisemitic ideology really underplays what's gone on here.

Good riddance.

History matters.

Any album with a track called "Techno in a Monastery" has to be worth listening to. www.theguardian.com/music/2026/j...

every single one of these priests has a terminal case of Resting White Supremacist Face

Applications for the Postdoctoral Fellowships are open. This fellowship is a three-year award made to an annual cohort of outstanding early-career researchers in the humanities or social sciences. Learn more: https://bit.ly/4xWduAS

This misses the point. Self-education has become more accessible in the last 20 years than at any point in history, though not through ‘amateur reading’. The problem isn’t access to information but learning how to evaluate it critically - and that brings us back to universities (and Humanities)

The Linnaeus University (southern Sweden) is inviting applications for 5-6 fully funded PhD positions in the arts and humanities, including #history, #arthistory and #religiousstudies. International applicants without prior knowledge of Swedish are encouraged to apply.

#Musicology is also included and a wonderful #Plainchant specialist, Karin Lagergren, works at Linnaeus University! #EarlyMusic

This. johnheathershaw.substack.com/p/the-crisis...

'What is perhaps remarkable about the Exeter cuts is that they are targeted at some of the university’s most successful departments, many of which turn over a profit even after they have made enormous and increasing contributions to the central university budget.' Read, rage and weep.

Exeter has a phenomenal track record of literary studies research AND enrollment. The unbundling of the two will sabotage them both. And that is by design. The fewer research-intensive humanities departments there are, this thinking goes, the easier it will be to censor what they produce.

Please sign this petition - now over 9k sigs - to stop the philistinic slashing of Humanities and Social Sciences staff at Exeter. #UCU #UKHE All solidarity with my brilliant friends and colleagues at @exeterucu.bsky.social

While history departments are subjected to cuts elsewhere (looking at you, Exeter), historians and their contributions to society are celebrated here.

On Tuesday, historian Marc Bloch (1886-1944) was inducted into the Panthéon with his wife Simonne Vidal (1894-1944). A medieval scholar and co-founder of the Annales School, Bloch served in the First World War and in the resistance before his murder by the Nazis in 1944 bit.ly/4eyAq1O #Skystorians

"The variety of historical evidence is nearly infinite. Everything that man says or writes ... can and ought to teach us about him. It is curious to note how many people, unacquainted with our work, underestimate the true extent of its possibilities." 'The Historian's Craft' (1949, trans 1954).

If you asked me, off the top of my head, to name a non-Oxbridge university in England synonymous with excellence in the Humanities - I would probably think of Exeter first. This feels like a very deliberate, targeted and ideological Bonfire of the Humanities

I’m extremely excited that my copies of The Carolingian South have arrived! Published by @manchesterup.bsky.social, I had great fun editing it with @graemeyward.bsky.social, turning the empire of Charlemagne upside down with a wonderful set of contributors! #medievalsky

'About 150 academic roles are set to go at the south-west institution, which said it was targeting areas that are “no longer sustainable” or have seen changes in student demand.' History and English are name-checked. 1/3

It’s not too late to book your place for the Palaeography Summer School in Birmingham in July! 📖✏️👨‍🎓👇 #MedievalSky #Skystorians #Latin palaeography.uk/study/short-...

🔴 LIVE: l'historien Marc Bloch, soldat et résistant assassiné par la Gestapo, entre au Panthéon lors d'un hommage présidé par Emmanuel Macron ⬇️ www.youtube.com/live/kj5HvPI...

Outstanding article by @owenjones.bsky.social, completely eviscerating the “journalists” and MPs claiming Starmer was “decent”. Forensic and detailed. This is how Starmer should be remembered. Not decent, a corrupt, bigoted dictatorial oppressor and bully. www.theguardian.com/commentisfre...

Offre d’emploi – One-Year postdoctoral fellowship: Relations between Frisia, Britain, Ireland, and Scandinavia (400-1100) rmblf.be/2026/06/23/o...

The media silence over the Island of Strangers speech seems to be part of an overall consensus that it’s impossible for people *not* to be against immigration. The media won’t even consider that there are people upset by xenophobia.

Keir Starmer this morning accused his Labour predecessors of "moral bankruptcy" yet in truth it was his own moral failure to stand up against the forces of far-right hate targeting this country that ultimately led to his downfall bylinetimes.com/2026/06/22/k...

If rumours are to be believed I'll be living with a seventh different Prime Minister shortly. If it carries on like this I'm going to stop making the effort to learn their names.

PS: I should have said too: it was of course only a huge majority in HoC seats, not in actual %. Factoring in the relatively low turnout emphasises that even just on this basis he should have approached everything very differently. A peculiar mix of entitlement and contempt for voters too, really.

Very good thread

"I hear you're sending me a seventh prime minister"

Proud to say I despised Starmer before it was cool. #Starmer

This is what happens when men don't talk about their feelings - Bron Lewis, Have you been paying attention? S14E05 [Beinecke MS 404, f.136r ]

Following UK news. Every time I hear a minister uttering the words ’deliver’ or ’delivery’, I imagine them as Deliveroo guys on bikes handing out food….

Nu blire en tråd om Linde medeltidskyrka på södra Gotland! Innehåller runor, djävulen o lejon. Häng me 🧵 1/n

Happy Father's Day 🖤

Skriver i DN om varför Musk och hans meningsfränder tycks närmast maniskt upptagna av att vredgas på Christopher Nolan för att han har mage att låta en svart skådis spela Helena i storfilmen The Odyssey (som kommer i juli). www.dn.se/kultur/ida-o...

Having survived the chaos of the Ming-Qing transition, the Jesuit Martino Martini (1614-1661) was in Brussels in 1654, where Michaelina Wautier (c.1614-1689) painted this portrait of him, a standout in the excellent @royalacademy.bsky.social show of her work. What tales did he tell her as he sat?

(•_•) <) )╯Publique fundinge / \ \(•_•) ( (> for the artes and humanityes / \ (•_•) <) )> doth benefit everyone! / \

Ego non approbo. Trinity College, Cambridge, B.5.4; Peter Lombard, Magna glossatura on the Psalms, Part I; 12th century; Christ Church, Canterbury; f.10v @trincollcam.bsky.social

The Carolingian South is now out! This new edited volume approaches the Franks from a new direction. To celebrate @manchesterup.bsky.social sat me and @graemeyward.bsky.social to ask us some questions about the book: manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/blog/2026/06... #medievalsky

Reposts very appreciated on this, as I’m looking globally! #AcademicChatter

"So ... so I said ... why not sign your treaty here, at Versailles?"

The sleazy dealings of the Swedish PM and his wife are starting to become international headlines. www.lemonde.fr/internationa...

Att ha en ”trög” förvaltningsmodell är en god, konservativ hållning i en rättsstat. Naturligtvis vill det ”konservativa” SD riva upp den modellen. Konservativa i alla läger förenen eder.

🚨 Job alert: Research Fellow, Project ‘Strange Geographies: Spatial Imaginaries of Medieval Britain’ You will carry out desk and archive-based research into manuscripts and preparing materials for web publication. 📆 Deadline: July 7th 📍Uni. of Southampton, UK ▶️ To apply: tinyurl.com/48bebudb