New blog post 📢📢 MEMOs team member Dr Nat Cutter (@natcutter.bsky.social ) gives us the true and gripping tale of an Englishwoman in Ottoman Tunis, Edith Stedham. Part Two next week! #earlymodern memorients.com/articles/edi...

6 September 1643, Agnes Hutchen complained to the Kirkcaldy presbytery that she heard Cristian Crystie "bann Elspet Hutchen tuyse and say the devill mak hir als daft as ever quhissill quhigg was both befoir and after hir marige".

Join us on 11th June 2026 for what promises to be a fascinating day of collegiate discussion and debate on seventeenth-century Scotland. Sign up here: A Kingdom in Perplexity: Voices of Seventeenth-Century Scotland www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-kingdom-...

Somebody really ought to create a database with mapping capabilities of the Aberdeen shore works accounts that survive from 1596 ⛵

For post-Reformation baptisms in Scotland, were witnesses necessarily godparents or could they be people who happened to be handy?

New issue of @scotchurchhist.bsky.social is out www.euppublishing.com/toc/sch/curr... Particularly pleased to see @chrislangley.bsky.social's cracking article on committees at the Scottish General Assemblies, 1638–39 published in this issue www.euppublishing.com/doi/abs/10.3... - do check it out!

@natlibscot.bsky.social recently acquired an important #EstherInglis manuscript that was in private hands - it's one of her most beautiful with dedication to Sir Thomas Wotton done unusually in gold lettering on red background. Argumenta in Librum Geneseos 1606.

WAVERLEY STATION RECYCLING:—Marginally less confusing than Regional List seats under the Additional Member System. (Photo courtesy of Tim Smith.) #Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news #election

Some notes on 'The 1640 inventory of Caerlaverock Castle', published today by Historic Environment Scotland: www.historicenvironment.scot/archives-and...

Would any Spanish speakers like to translate a paragraph from 1714 for me? I'd like to quote from it in an article, so would like a human translation (credited, of course).

Amy Blakeway’s research has contributed to the War, Destruction and Reform: The Early Years of Mary, Queen of Scots exhibition 👸 📅Open daily at the Wardlaw Museum in St Andrews until 20th September 2026 mary-queen-of-scots.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk

Got your eyes open for a good read? 👀 Now's the time to stock up on a few books for the summer. 50% off sitewide lasts until May 31. Terms and conditions apply. U.S. and Canadian customers only.

Great to see my colleague Steve Boardman's new book out, on late medieval Scotland edinburghuniversitypress.com/book-the-fir...

March 1603, Margaret Wood complained to Aberdeen KS that her husband, Alexander Broddie, a flesher, had separated from her "baith at bed and buird" and had shacked up with Effie Robertson. Alexander and Effie denied adultery, but were later caught "togidder in nakeit bed" at midnight. Both banished.

A prosopography of shirtmaking at the royal court of Scotland en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grissel...

Help with #palaeography please! ‘S[ummon]d[s] of Removeing / Geo: Ramsay / [The?] / [beisteret?]’

My new post, on the Elizabethan 'Case of Mines', which turns out to have lots of interesting bits just below the surface. legalhistorymiscellany.com/2026/04/22/t...

Excited to be talking ‘Connecting Scotland’s History’ at the most luxy of bookfests @bozzybookfest.bsky.social on Sunday 10 May. Thank you for having me!

Thanks, past me, for making a note that the Aberdeen Bailie Court books don't survive between 1598 and 1651. At the writing up stage of an article and had a real moment of panic that I'd missed a massive chunk of archival data.

Roslin Kerr, a PhD candidate at the University of Glasgow, will be presenting 'Coerced Consent: Civic Authority and Violence in Aberdeen’s Covenanting Crisis'.

For those interested in Scottish history, Rebecca Wilkieson will be presenting "Maritime Scotland and the Transatlantic Trade: the development of Scotland’s maritime infrastructure through the transatlantic trade, 1690-1750"

I'm delighted to be presenting at @amaemconference.bsky.social in May this year. The conference theme is 'violence', and treatment of PoWs in the seventeenth century was far from humane. I'll be talking about Spalding's description of the fate of prisoners after the Battle of the Brig of Dee.

Following the trail of 1620s recusant James Gordon of Letterfourie has led to this spectacular 1770s Robert Adam pile. www.countrylife.co.uk/property/wit...

When you were only going for one pint but... On 25 July 1765, a commission investigating a revolt in Bergen questioned one instigator, Jochum de Lange, who stated that "he was drunk and therefore rioted along with the others," and that he remembered neither what he did nor said "due to drunkenness".

Delighted that my new article in @historyworkshop.org.uk, co-authored with @drhollyfletcher.bsky.social, is now published! Thanks to all who read and heard earlier versions of this @wellcometrust.bsky.social funded research :) academic.oup.com/hwj/advance-... [track.smtpsendmail.com]

'directit' him to his own bed wt ane 'souple' From DOST- Soupill, Soupell, n. Also: sowpill, souple, supple. The part of a flail that strikes the grain in threshing. Also, a piece of wood intended for this purpos

Paleography puzzler, please! Gist is that Stevenson went to Margaret's bed with the intention of lying with her, "quhilk ? ?" and told him return to his own bed "with ane ?"

EDINBURGH RHAPSODY IN BLUE:—View across the Old Town. #Edinburgh #hyperlocal #news

St Andrews may be the most American university in the U.K. “You think you’re coming to get this Scottish or international experience, and there’s just so many Americans.” 🔗 on.wsj.com/4rvrJs5

🚨🚨 Announcing: SUMMA 🚨🚨 Simple spreadsheet software for calculating with Early Modern English currency. gjhilton.github.io/Summa/

I wrote this about art restoration for the FT. www.ft.com/content/bfa0...

🎥Watch the 2025 Sue Innes Lecture, now available on our website, where @vawright10.bsky.social explores women-led grassroots campaigns for improved housing across Glasgow during the twentieth century Watch here 👇 womenshistoryscotland.org/news-and-eve... #WomensHistoryMonth #ScottishHistory

🚨NEW Blogpost🚨 We all know about the #OldFirm. But what's the 'oldest firm' in the history of Scottish #football? ⚽🏉 The answer takes us back to #medieval and #earlymodern St Andrews, where university and city invested in an unlawful game. 👇 ludicrushistories.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/t...

Neat way to tell a century of personal and public history. www.nytimes.com/2026/03/08/n...

Have finished the splendid Cynthia Neville festschrift Crossing Borders (eds @kjkesselring.bsky.social & Sara Butler). Scottish essays of particular note for me are @kiritekatawa.bsky.social on banishment, Amy Blakeway on spies, and Steve Boardman on battle of Harlaw.

What is an SHR article? Laura Stewart, Convener of the Scottish Historical Review Trust, tries to propose an answer. You can read more about it here: www.euppublishing.com/do/10.5555/n...

Who else has found mythological first names in their Scottish records? I've a couple of Hectors and Herculeses and one each of Dionysus and Lancelot.

16 July 1643, the kirk session of Culross hired a painter named Valentine to whitewash the kirk walls. Other session business that day included fining John Aidie 12s for fishing on the Sabbath and an ordinance for residents of both "town and land" to "attend the watching of the witches".

Think this deserves a bit more attention. The ‘favourites’ of James VI have recently been the subject of popular history books and representation on television. But what do Scottish early modernists think? www.thenational.scot/culture/2584...

Video and audio recordings are now available of the Society's latest lecture (6 February): ‘Alike in Appearance but not in Scope’: Queens and the Making of Medieval Europe' with Professor Charles West (University of Edinburgh) bit.ly/46j42f5 @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social #Skystorians

From the NY Times Best TV shows of 2025. Unforgotten is the best, but not unforgettable.

Any suggestions for where I might find information on early-1600s Edinburgh tailors? Looking for William Elder, tailor and burgess.

Siobhán McSweeney modeling the scholar at work and play.

“Paws on Parchment” - this exhibition looks amazing as do the visiting kittens. (Image below of four foster kittens who visited the exhibition at the Walters Museum shortly after it opened). www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/a... #medievalsky

Come for the loos, stay for the sleeves.

Guitar Center Institutes 72-Hour Waiting Period https://theonion.com/guitar-center-institutes-72-hour-waiting-period/

In December 1644, Canongate kirk session organised a clothing drive for "their souldiers in the north". Donated were, quote: 1. new clothes 72 stands 2. old clothes 126 stands 3. new hoise 25 pair 4. old hoise 40 pair 5. old boots 35 pair 6. shoon 9 pair 7. sarks 62

James II on his way to the siege of Roxburgh where he was blown up by his own cannon - probably The Lion, wore a cloak made from four and half ells of purple velvet which must have looked quite impressive. ( Quatuor ulnis cum quarta panni serici dicti vellus purpurii colouris)