What a delightfully thoughtful touch from an etsy shop 🥹

Middle-earth cookery adventures with my daughter again. #ElvenCookbook Today it’s Beren’s Vegan Scramble (Beren is canonically a vegetarian, although access to tofu in the forest feels a stretch!).

Feueralarmregenwetterversammlung

The unmistakable spire of Salisbury Cathedral — the tallest in Britain. A spectacular shot taken earlier this week by Martin Cook 📸

This year's H.M. Chadwick Lecture is being given by Prof. Barry Lewis on 19th March with the title 'The flourishing of vernacular literature in the Wales of Llywelyn the Great'. #Skystorians #HanesCymru The Zoom registration link is here:

If you have graduate students working with medieval manuscripts this free online training might be useful 👇 www.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Eating the parchment BnF Latin 12048; Sacramentarium gelasianum; 8th century (c.780 CE-800 CE); France (diocese of Meaux or Cambrai?); f.227v @gallicabnf.bsky.social

#Candlemas🕯️ If the sun shines on the altar on Candlemas Day, there will be an abundant harvest during the ensuing year 🌾 📍St Brynach's Church • Cowbridge ⛪️ #Wales #History

okay, I was ready for the Left Behind season of American history, but I wasn’t ready for the That Hideous Strength season

Not a bird, but passing through Lewisham today so … place-name of the day 125: CATFORD (London). OE catt + ford. ‘Ford where wild cats are seen crossing or nearby’. Hard to believe wildcats were once roaming here in what is now a busy London borough; love the incongruity. #naturewriting #PlaceNames

It is a little-known fact that St John the Evangelist was rarely seen without his signature Nintendo controller! (BL, MS Add 5112/1)

A trivial and avowedly pedantic post to Critical Star Trek: latestartrek.substack.com/p/ex-astris-...

Wonderful parcel arrived from a friend in Germany, containing among other things 3 bars of chocolate and an inspiring message! #tinyjoys

Asking the most important questions.

Spent the day doing research in a private archive in Sussex. I had a research assistant, but she mostly just slept. I offer this hopefully as a timeline cleanse, a moment of calm. ❤️📚

Ottid eiry ar warthaw reo. gosguipid g[u]int blaen guit tev. kadir yscuid ar yscuit glev. Snow falls atop ice wind sweeps the tips of sturdy trees powerful a shield on the shoulder of the brave "Llym awel", NLW Peniarth MS 1 (The Black Book of Carmarthen, mid. 13th century)

Want something to look forward to in these dark days? Booking is open for the London International Palaeography Summer School in June. We have a range of in-person, 5 day courses, including Introduction to Handwriting in England c.700-1700 👇 #MedievalSky ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

#OTD Sunday 22d. Foggy day, & did not go out. —

Are you filled with righteous anger about Donald Trump's fascism in the States? Good, but not enough. Now, make it your personal responsibility to ensure Nigel Farage never gets to introduce it here.

12th century German nun and illuminator Guda who created one of the earliest surviving self-portraits of a woman in European imagery #womensart

Wow the #aurora are even behind me now to the south over Welshpool 🙂

If you're looking for a sign to switch careers: this is the sign.

The inkless doodles of Eadburg, an 8th-c. nun, discovered by new technology: now published by Jessica Hendy-Hodgkinson in EME doi.org/10.1111/emed... (Open access)

Perhaps the weirdest item in @theul.bsky.social's catalogue, which is not in fact a book but an actual boot from 17th-century Lithuania (it's a long story...)

Incredibly satisfying that I go to install Python on my current personal laptop for the first time and see that the latest stable release is 3.14.2 Call that π-thon

SCAM ALERT – IMPORTANT The cat has already been fed.

Back to the Lindisfarne Gospels facsimile volumes. I wonder if there is any chance at all of a reprint of the commentary volume. It contains an absolute treasure trove of detailed paleographical observation by Julian Brown, not least a letter-by-letter description of the main script, 🧵 #medievalsky

The Norfolk Carnyx: a Playmobil story in 4 parts. 🧵 #DiggingForBritain #DrawingDiggingForBritain #PlaymobilInfestation @profaliceroberts.bsky.social @pcaarchaeology.bsky.social 1: Life

Oh, and another wild paleographical thing I hadn't noticed before: midway through John, Eadfrith starts adding an extra lobe to his Bs. Bottom of 235r, Bs are normal. Top of 235v, Bs get an extra lobe on the ascender. Once they start, they're all over the place for the remainder of the manuscript.

I’m teaching the history of book collecting at London Rare Book School this summer. It will be fun! 👇 ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

I’m looking forward to this at the end of the month. There are still a couple of places if anyone has students who would benefit. #MedievalSky @ihr.bsky.social palaeography.uk/study/short-...

It’s not too late to book for this online short course later this month 👇 #medievalSky @warburginstitute.bsky.social @ies-sas.bsky.social palaeography.uk/study/short-...

THREAD. 3 years ago, with no warning, a brilliant orange farm cat wandered over from the draughty barn where he had been living, in rural Cornwall, and decided he wanted to live with us instead. We decided to call him Jim. This is the first photo I took of him, on that night: December 1st, 2022.

Interested in Palaeography and Manuscript Studies? Sign up now for our London International Palaeography School. Explore our exciting course options and secure your spot here: buff.ly/WP2GKLD #Palaeography #Manuscripts

Passed a white horse cut into a hillside. Explained the Uffington White Horse. Found a picture. Quite clearly: not a horse. #rabbitholeengaged

“[But] almost certainly the items were buried in the first century AD, and that brings us closer to the Iceni and to Boudicca. They are of such quality that … any important people from the Iceni and other groups would have known these objects.” www.theguardian.com/science/2026...

I spent Christmas thinking about Greco-Bactrian kings and Greek texts in Nubia, and now you can too! If you'd welcome some distraction from Armageddon, here's my January mega-post, all about the Greek language's life beyond Europe. dannybate.com/2026/01/06/g...

So far in 1066: • Edward the Confessor has died. • Harold Godwineson has been named king instead of Edgar Ætheling. • Edward has been buried. • Harold has been crowned. It's still only 6 January.

I’m really proud of what @ies-sas.bsky.social students have achieved with their work transcribing and analysing Madden’s journal for 1826. I promise it gets more interesting as the year goes on, so give them a follow. 👇

A tale of three norths in three photos 1️⃣ The pier at Berwick-upon-Tweed, where the rare triple alignment of the Three Norths (True North, Grid North, Magnetic North) left England in December 2025, drifting out into the North Sea. 📸 Lewis Clarke (CC BY-SA 2.0)

There may be snow on the ground but today we are closer to the sun than any other day! Here in the northern hemisphere it may be cold and dark, but remember, light and warmth are always closer than they appear

“Mi a uydaf porthaỽr y arthur pob dyỽ kalan ionaỽr.” “I am gatekeeper to Arthur every 1st of January.” Glewlwyd Gafaelfawr to Culhwch, who sought entry into Arthur’s court after custom dictated that he should not be let in. ("Culhwch & Olwen", NLW Peniarth MS 4, s.xivᵐᵉᵈ)

28 December is the #fourthdayofChristmas, and the Feast of the #HolyInnocents. Here is an #illuminated initial from a #song for #InnocentsDay, from a #15thCentury #Antiphonal commissioned for the monastery of San Sisto in Piacenza in 1475. #BostonPublicLIbrary #earlymusic #renaissance #otd

At what is the face in the lower margin looking? 🤔 Einsiedeln, Stiftsbibliothek, Codex 38(366); Anonymus, Expositio octo priorum Epistolarum S. Pauli; 10th century (second half, about 960-965); Einsiedeln; f.11r (www.e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)

Blissfully relaxed Boxing Day morning, watching tits visit the bird feeder opposite the kitchen window while I read @drmjwarren.bsky.social wonderful ‘The Cuckoo’s Lea’ 🐦🐦🐦

A breathtaking graphic meditation on the Christmas miracle, Nativity at Night by Geertgen tot Sint Jans, is my favorite painting for the season – oil on oak panel, circa 1490. Small in size, measuring 34 × 25.3 cm, it is vast in its implications. Currently on display at the National Gallery, London.

🌲2️⃣4️⃣🎁 Rétglu etir rind We, the staff of Maynooth’s Department of Early Irish, want to bring the relevance of medieval Ireland and its culture closer to audiences in Ireland (and beyond) by disseminating our work beyond academia, for example through appearances in TV documentaries and radio shows. 📖

Every Christmas Eve I get a ridiculous amount of pleasure from this: Follow flight SANTA25 from Rovaniemi to Rovaniemi with Plane Finder planefinder.net/flight/numbe...