This Matthew Paris MS is worth clicking through to look at. Cool king portraits, but also cute little date cartouches in the chronicle.

There’s something for all book-lovers at this summer’s London Rare Books School #Books ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

The life of Frederic Madden, in his words, 200 years after the events described. Transcribed from his journal by students @ies-sas.bsky.social. Released daily in 2026.👇 madden1826.com

I’m told that the book has been sent to print and that it’ll be out on 31 March 😭

Thank you to Special Collections @kent.ac.uk for hosting @memsunikent.bsky.social MA students and showing such exciting items held in the library. You could tell how excited people were!

Sunday 5th. Fine day. Called on Mr Urwin. Not at home. Walked in the park. Great many carriages. In Ev'g. went to Marybone Church with a milliner! A pretty adventure! Find out more about Madden's relationships with women @ www.madden1826.com #otd

Madden and Women in 1826 In his entry for 17 May 1826, Frederic Madden described a dinner with nine other men as "Rather dull - as I always find it among men. Give me only a woman - a pretty woman - to talk to and I am content - but among men I am melancholy & not inclined to utter a word." His…

It was great to get to talk about print culture at the National Gallery’s ‘At the time of Wright of Derby’ salon series, which coincides with the Wright exhibition. 3 more exhibition member talks coming up: www.nationalgallery.org.uk/events/at-th...

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

Stumbled across this article from 2008. How times have changed – not just the policies but also the tenor of political discourse 😔 www.theguardian.com/education/20...

A wonderfully warm and fitting tribute from @alixebovey.bsky.social to the medieval art historian John Lowden. What a long, hard winter this has been. courtauld.ac.uk/news-blogs/2...

Some sad news. courtauld.ac.uk/news-blogs/2...

Saturday 4th. Very dirty day. Wrote to Miss Hayton, – but shall not send the letter till I get the Nos of Hone's book bound. ... Full entry: www.madden1826.com/4-february #otd featuring Francis Douce, and an ivory casket

Oh this is good. All my colleagues in Herts history are brilliant. Big focus on social/cultural/medical history and ofc folklore (sadly no medieval). Now I want to do one!

Excellent article but stark reminder that for all the perceptions of universities as ivory towers for elites, they are actually vital hubs in towns n cities supporting local businesses and providing key services as well as education….

Breaking News: The conspiracy theorists who claimed that Shakespeare never existed were right. 🙃

Coming soonish…

A selection of Arabic manuscripts from the John Rylands Library are now available online via Manchester Digital Collections, including early Qurʿanic manuscripts, richly illuminated muṣḥafs, and rare translated texts. Learn more about the collection in a new blog post: https://ow.ly/askj50Y65fj

18 month postdoc at the lovely IHR in London, $41,740. Deadline 7 March. 'The Fellow will play a key role within the IHR team responsible for hosting the 2027 North American Conference in British Studies (NACBS)' in London 2027. Repost to spread the word. #Skystorians

Friday 3d. At Musm. Finished Will. Rishanger, – whose Chronicle is entirely confined to the accounts of the battles of Lewes & Evesham ... commenced from the same MS. "Liber Chronicorum... full entry: www.madden1826.com/3-february MS👇@britishlibrary.bsky.social

I’ll be teaching this, with help from some excellent guest speakers, in person, in London, in June. It will be fun. #BookHistory 👇 ies.sas.ac.uk/study-traini...

This is the sort of thing we get up to… #MedievalSky The flip chart reminds me that we were trying to calculate how much time you might get off purgatory from a medieval prayer. Yes we’re fun at parties. Come join us 8-12 June @ies-sas.bsky.social

The test for whether sufficient Epstein documents have been disclosed is simple. Do the documents so far disclosed explain the prosecutorial decisions and defense decisions, and any court decisions? If not, there is a gap between what has been disclosed and what was before court and the parties.

Next week’s course on Greek palaeography is sold out, but we still have some places on beginner and intermediate Latin 👇 #medievalsky @ies-sas.bsky.social ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

If you think that you have missed out in taking part in #IMC2026... Happy Medieval Monday to you because the Late Call for Proposals is still open! 😀 🎊 Click here: www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2026/lat... and have a look at the sessions which could contain your future research! #MedievalSky

I guess it was inevitable that we’d let a typo through sooner or later. Should be fixed on the website now. 🤦🏻‍♀️ www.madden1826.com

For this month's Council's Choice, Joseph Hone highlights the Catalog of Distinctive Type (1660-1700): bibsoc.org.uk/councils-cho...

For more on the manuscripts see madden1826.com?page_id=564

We've made it to the end of January 1826/2026! Here are some statistics about Madden's journal for January. 👇Where he went, who he met, and which words appear most often. #Regency #London

Tuesday 31st. At Musm. contd. Claud. D. 6. Compared Mr Douce‘s MS copy of his MS. with the Harl. MS. No. 527. which Ritson ascribes to the 12th centy but which certainly is not older than the end of Hen. 3ds. reign, or beginning of Edw. 1st. ... #OTD for full entry 👇 madden1826.com/31-January

BOOK HISTORIANS please help: does anyone have a source for how much Jacob Tonson paid Barbazon Ailmer (Aylmer?) for the publishing rights in PARADISE LOST? #earlymodern #skystorian #bookhistory

First BBSRC and MRC; now EPSRC. 'EPSRC has announced that applications to its programme grant scheme have been paused in the areas of energy and decarbonisation (clean growth), manufacturing and circular economy and quantum technologies.'

Join us on Tuesday, 3 February, 6-8pm at Senate House, London. Booking required. Free to attend. More details and booking form here: ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/....

This looks to be a very promising resource. Researchers in computational humanities at @inriaparisnlp.bsky.social have created CoMMA, a large corpus of more than 32000 manuscripts from ca. 800 to 1600. www.inria.fr/en/comma-med... #medievalsky #earlymodern #dh #digitalhumanities

Monday 30th. K. Charles Martyrdm. & a holiday at the Musm. Read Sophocles all the morn'g. Walked to Hone’s & bought two Nos. of his book. The Index will not be printed till next week. Paid Bohn what I owe him. ... #OTD Full entry:

Join us next month to find out how Canterbury's past was investigated for the new Historic Towns Atlas! This webinar is in collaboration with the Historic Towns Trust @historictownstrust.bsky.social Find out more: www.balh.org.uk/event-balh-i... #WeAreLocalHistory #LocalHistoryForAll

Here's the @visithmml.bsky.social webinar from yesterday. It was especially interesting on the process of moving digital images from the field to tagged, backed up, and usable MS facsimiles, and on details of the photographic process in the question period at the end. youtu.be/CXR18p1M1sc?...

Here are some photos from last year’s course: the only summer school group ever known to work through the lunch breaks #MedievalSky #Manuscripts @ies-sas.bsky.social @senatehouselib.bsky.social

As part of the @hips-project.bsky.social, PI Eyal Poleg speaking at IES…

Sunday 29th. Wrote to my dearest M. & Miss Hayton but shall not send the letters, till I get the last No of Hone’s book _ At 3 oC. walked down to Fulham, where I remained. #OTD 💌 www.madden1826.com/29-january

The first medieval manuscripts seminar of the term is next Tuesday. It’s a hybrid lecture. Eyal Poleg will be talking about The Science of Erasures #MedievalSky 👇 ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

I hate to tap the sign but again: this is all made to make in-person education and access to knowledge transfer a preserve of the elite. Human education for the few, bots for the many.

Next week’s course on Greek palaeography is sold out, but we still have some places on beginner and intermediate Latin 👇 #medievalsky @ies-sas.bsky.social ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

Comment les moines du Moyen Âge luttaient-ils contre le froid ? theconversation.com/comment-les-...

📖 Working with tabulated manuscript data? Looking for ways to clean and curate it? Interested in connecting it to referential sources? 💎 Join the DELM creche on data wrangling with OpenRefine. We will explore this tool, including import/export to WikiData. 📅 11 February, 13.00-14.30 CET #medievalsky

March 6 is the deadline to apply for Introduction to #Arabic #Manuscript Studies—a virtual, one-week intensive course held from June 22 to 26, 2026. Apply today: hmml.org/programs/arabic-mss-studies

Free, virtual program happening today at 11am (CT)! Registration: secure.hmml.org/a/winter-lec...

Saturday 28th. At Musm. & waited for an hour but Mr Petrie did not arrive. Wrote a letter to Mr Roscoe, fixing the 1st. March as the period for my leav’g town. Met my brother & promised to go to Fulham tomorrow. ... #OTD Find out more 👇 Full entry

#medievalsky #normans

A little stop motion video I made of an almanac in the University of Rochester collection to try and give viewers an idea of how it functions 😊 (Video of RCL cod. a.1, a late 14th century folding almanac from England, likely Oxford)