I had the equivalent job 2019–22; I've no special insights, but will happily try to make the job and the system it sits within more legible if you're thinking of applying and aren't familiar with Oxford. Email me.

Merton College, Oxford are advertising a career development fellowship in medieval English—a four-year teaching-and-research post: www.merton.ox.ac.uk/vacancies. D/l 9 AM, 24 February (think of it as 23 February!).

Made a macro for single-key-press en-dash. How did I live without this?

Honestly thought this was a nice, quite legible hand! Maybe it's all the 18C hands I've been staring at this month. This prompts me to make a short 🧵 about recent thoughts about handwriting and palaeography: (1/11)

‘No wonder I got drunk that night. I’d been Chaucer for a week!’ - my article on Kipling’s Dayspring Mishandled, his entertaining and peculiar account of a Chaucerian forgery, is out now with the Review of English Studies! I absolutely *loved* working on this. academic.oup.com/res/advance-...

British Library placements for doctoral students at UK universities: www.bl.uk/services/res... Good opportunity to spend focused months at the BL. One of these is 'Describing the British Library’s Illustrated and Illuminated Incunabula'! Deadline's 27 February.

My book published yesterday! If it looks like your thing, maybe suggest your library buys a copy, or offer to review it for a journal, or you can get 35% off with code BB135 boydellandbrewer.com/book/motherh...

A pleasure to chair Stacie Vos’s paper at the Medieval English Research Seminar yday and to catch up with her at the Creative Medievalisms symposium last week, where Stacie read from her microfiction book MORE NAMES (The Keys to the Buttery here is inspired by Margery Kempe!)

The best thirty-quid spend of the year: the Early English Text Society subscription.

I want to write an extremely niche article on how the cover designs for books on the history of medieval England rarely feature works of art produced *in* England bc surviving works of art are rarely sufficiently naturalistic to illustrate the books' claims the way a book cover is expected to do.

The deadline for expressions of interest is approaching (15 Jan) - please do consider getting in touch!

An interesting PhD opportunity (i.e. job!) at Oslo on the project POLYCHROME: "Candidates should propose a research project that examines, in one form or another, historical sources that shed light on changing attitudes to medieval objects after the Reformations in the Scandinavian countries."

Recommending this for any grad student or postdoc who's even just curious. I went to a similar EETS workshop during my doctorate, and on top of arming me to edit it also made me a better reader of editions—which's useful in all kinds of work!

We are delighted to announce the release of issue 94.1 of Medium Ævum, the journal of the Society for the Study of Medieval Languages and Literature. Medium Ævum (94.1) contains: [1/7]

🚨Phd Position in #Digital #Medieval Manuscripts Studies You will be part of an international research project, applying innovative computational methods to the study of the transmission history of the Latin Physiologus and the Bestiary. 📍Radbout University (NL) 📆15 Jan 2026 ▶️ tinyurl.com/3wtcxpfc

If you want to do an MA in London but have 'barriers accessing education or may face greater challenges while undertaking their degree' (specific criteria below), you can apply for a £3,000 tuition grant at Birkbeck. Lots of choices at @bbkhistorical.bsky.social: www.bbk.ac.uk/student-serv...

Calling all fifteenth-century scholars: if you have not yet submitted your proposal for this year's conference hosted by @memsunikent.bsky.social, now is the time to do so. CfP open until 31st January.

Starting the new year with some work on everyone's favourite early poet (Orrm).

A 2026 reshare of my starter pack of freelance book indexers on Bluesky, including members of @indexers.bsky.social and other indexing societies. It’s opt-in/out by request, so just let me know if you wish to join or leave it. Good to see you all in the #IndexSky. go.bsky.app/GzqinPu

I don't know anything about D. H. Lawrence's writing, but his delivery company is a joke.

Grateful for a very positive review of this volume in the newest _Studies in the Age of Chaucer_. Indebted to our fantastic contributors and to editor supreme Clare Litt @livunipress.bsky.social! Remember the paperback is imminent and can be preordered now with a good discount.

This is sad news. I only met Carey once, when his Little History of Poetry was due out with Yale UP. I remember him joking that after so many books with Faber, having something peer-reviewed was a fresh experience(!).

As we come towards the close of the year we at the Guild of Medievalist Makers wanted to share our 'Year in Review: 2025', written by Guild co-founder @hellomizk.bsky.social. Thank you to all of the Guild members who have made 2025 an excellent inaugural year🎉

Today it's been ten years, fifteen journal articles, four chapters, two editions, and two books since I submitted my doctoral thesis.

Attention creative medievalists! Eleanor Barraclough & I are co-editing a special issue of Public Humanities entitled CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW! See the cfp for details: essays of 2,000-3,000 words due 1 May 2026. (Amazing artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social). 1/ www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Eleven years ago, I wrote to Tom Stoppard to ask about this coup de théâtre from 1949. It took me down an unexpected rabbit hole - in memory of Stoppard, here's what I found.

Learned recently: Osbern Bokenham tells us he wore glasses (or at least used some kind of reading lens?).

Call For Papers: Teaching With Ovid. Any aspect of teaching Ovid in the classroom, for a 2-day symposium on 12-13 June 2026. Classicist teaching Ovid? Medievalist teaching the Ovide moralise? Librarian/archivist with historic copies of Ovid to share? Take a look: shorturl.at/RiviU Deadline 16 Jan.

Poking through a chunk that [poem title redacted] formally highlights in several ways, I find it's also the first known use of a significant word. Which is satisfying.

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

Those who teach and research Sir Gawain and the Green Knight will be interested in this fantastic research hub concerned with historic and contemporary creative responses to the late medieval poem. They're also looking for contributors, so do get in contact with @michaeledenart.bsky.social! 👇

Interested in letter-writing in early medieval Britain? A three-year postdoc on @francescatinti.bsky.social’s and my project is now available. Apps close on 17th Oct. Let me know if you have any questions and please circulate! 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Happy to see one of the old wooden chairs from the English Faculty Library quietly occupying a corner in Oxford's new Humanities Library.

This came out earlier this week! Thank you so much to Yale University Press for all their efforts getting it to publication.

🚨🐳We’re putting together a panel on #whales in medieval #literature for #IMC2026! Two papers are already confirmed: Icelandic sagas and English poetry. We’re looking for one more speaker to join us. If your research touches literary traditions too, we would be delighted to hear from you. Please DM.

Really enjoying @danielsawyer.bsky.social’s How To Read Middle English Poetry! I bought a copy to supplement my knowledge of ME (working on only limited romances, I don’t come across lots of the potential forms) and it is doing an amazing job of recolouring poems familiar and new!

A Midnight Treasury of Macabre & Weird Poems, ed Ana Sampson, featuring the poems of (amongst others) Percy Bysshe Shelley and yours truly (!), out in Sept! (Pictured here with the Shelley Memorial at University College, Oxford) 🥀🪾👻🖤

Mary has kindly shared a 20% discount code for her @reaktionbooks.bsky.social biography of Chaucer, Geoffrey Chaucer: Unveiling the Merry Bard, when purchasing direct from the Reaktion Books website! You can find the discount code at the bottom of the blogpost.

My book is out! Medieval Responses to Ovid's Exile, with Cambridge UP @universitypress.cambridge.org. I am so grateful to the friends, family, colleagues, librarians and archivists who helped along the way. Nervous and excited to see it in the world! www.cambridge.org/core/books/m...

Glad to see another generous review of the book, this time in SELIM's journal: reunido.uniovi.es/index.php/SE...

Can attest that this is an excellent teaching book (and useful for those teaching, too!)

If you're someone planning to teach Middle English next year please consider my book, which might be helpful for your students!

Absolutely delighted that my article on the textual transmission of Aldhelm's Carmen de virginitate is now out in the most recent volume of Mittellateinische Jahrbuch!

After six months ill and writing slowly at best, I'm trying to get back into the saddle with my third book. (I'm not recovered, just starting to learn to live with it.)

An exhibition of medieval manuscripts at Cambridge's @parkerlibcccc.bsky.social! Curated by Timothy Glover (Richard Rolle specialist and current Parker Library Early-Career Research Fellow). Do pop in/book a tour if you are in Cambridge - July only!

A fantastic 2nd day at @themamoconf.bsky.social 🎉 Gorgeous performance of Yde & Olive by @daisyeblack.bsky.social. I really enjoyed @danielsawyer.bsky.social paper- buy his excellent book! Fantastic energising workshop wi @menysnoweballes.bsky.social & I enjoyed repping @guildmedmak.bsky.social

Come to my paper tomorrow (Wednesday) afternoon to find out why it has such a curiously uninformative title. I promise a unique answer.

Come and say hi in the Council Room during the breaks! We have examples of our work and also merch! (Postcards & pins!) @guildmedmak.bsky.social

The AND's own transcriptions of 13 unpublished Anglo-Norman texts (including religious narratives, a legal treatise and language manuals) are now also accessible through the Oxford Text Archive. hdl.handle.net/20.500.14106...

Looking forward to @themamoconf.bsky.social tomorrow.