“…some of the most compelling women characters you’re likely to find in print. [… Dorothy] Dunnett’s female characters have both feet firmly planted in a sixteenth-century world”
Historian @yvonneseale.bsky.social on the women of THE LYMOND CHRONICLES
#BookWormSat 💙📚
yvonneseale.org/blog/2019/05...
I'm so glad we treated you well, and that the tea was plentiful!
Thank you kindly! :D
Something to keep in mind the next time you tuck into a croque-monsieur :D
(As for how many severed foreskins of the infant Jesus: somewhere between 8 to 18, housed in churches across a wide swathe of western Europe, depending on how you count them.)
![Screenshot containing the text "This was not the only test of the relic's legitimacy: as anthropologist Eric Silverman writes, "A common test for foreskinned authenticity [in medieval times] was taste. A physician, supervised by a priest, sampled the skin for the flavor of genuine holiness. The taster was called a croque-prépuce, or 'foreskin cruncher.'""](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:okq36hobnwkyak6v6c4fpnsn/bafkreicwezxgjbyx4j7rm3yndptnte6zdtpik7pd53ijatygkdy7374wai)
Screenshot containing the text "This was not the only test of the relic's legitimacy: as anthropologist Eric Silverman writes, "A common test for foreskinned authenticity [in medieval times] was taste. A physician, supervised by a priest, sampled the skin for the flavor of genuine holiness. The taster was called a croque-prépuce, or 'foreskin cruncher.'""
In class today, a student asked me how many Holy Prepuces (the supposed circumcised foreskin of the infant Jesus, venerated as a relic) were floating around in medieval Europe. I didn't know the exact number, looked it up, and stumbled across this fun fact.
Surely one of history's weirder jobs?
So pleased to have contributed to this article in the latest issue of JMMS on cartulary editing and analysis!
doi.org/10.1484/J.JM...
Watching Mary Robinson's inauguration in 1990—her purple suit vivid amid a sea of black-clad male dignitaries on the dais in Dublin Castle—is one of my earliest memories.
www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2...
Four people standing side by side. From left to right: Mary McAleese, a woman with blonde hair in a purple dress; Catherine Connolly, a woman with grey hair in a purple pant suit; Michael D. Higgins, a man with white hair in a dark suit and purple tie; Mary Robinson, a woman in a deep red blazer over a black turtleneck and trousers.
My current (Catherine Connolly, second from left) and former presidents (Mary McAleese, Michael D. Higgins, Mary Robinson) displayed a real commitment to colour coordination at today's presidential inauguration.
Front cover of a book, with "Childhood and the Irish: A Miscellany" in dark font against a cream background. There is a black and white cover photo of a young boy on roller skates.
Thrilled to have written something for "Childhood and the Irish" (ed. @salvadorryan.bsky.social), a collection which explores so many aspects of growing up in Ireland over the centuries. My contribution is about piecing together the life of a foundling ancestor.
wordwellbooks.com/index.php?ro...
Would you say that in Ireland we have a "tea-ceful" transfer of power?
... I'll see myself out.
Something I do at least once a year, before I teach a class on a specific topic in the history of antisemitism in medieval Europe: check to see if a certain archdiocese's website still has a page stating that one of the blood libel myths is a historical event.
Yup, still there! It's November 2025.
Thank you, Liz! :)
Built in the early 13th century for the Conti di Segni (the family of Pope Innocent III), the Torre has survived multiple earthquakes—will it survive this? I very much hope the injured and trapped workers are all rescued and recover speedily. The video is so unnerving to watch.
Autocorrect: saving you from a dire fate at the hands of the scribe-tormenting Tutivillus?
"Tutivillus complains that “I muste eche day [...] brynge my master a thousande pokes full of faylynges, & of neglygences in syllables and wordes… else I must be sore beten."
daily.jstor.org/tutivillus-i...
Das nennt sich einfach Unhöflichkeit und Herablassung. Auf Wiedersehen.
Und nochmal: ich teile nur den Link. Warum glauben Sie, dass ich für dieses Projekt verantwortlich bin?
Und wann war Heidelberg eine Hansestadt?
Ich teile nur den Link. Wenn Sie Kommentare machen möchten, können Sie Viabundus kontaktieren: www.landesgeschichte.uni-goettingen.de/handelsstras...
And with a bigger percentage of first-preference votes than even Dev managed back in the '50s.
I presumed so, yes, but couldn't find out the exact connection. Col. Pine-Coffin's Wiki page is quite the read—a British officer on the WW2 battlefield in cowboy boots?
Screenshot of the Viabundus website.
A neat tool I just came across: Viabundus, a digital road map of northern Europe 1350-1650, that lets you calculate contemporary travel routes/times. In 1500, going Amiens → Köln by horse took almost 7 days and 13 toll payments.
#medievalsky
www.landesgeschichte.uni-goettingen.de/handelsstras...
Part of a title page of a book, showing the text "Saint Augustine Confessions, Translated with an Introduction by R.S. Pine-Coffin."
Sometimes a translator's name will make you pause and blink at the title page.
A heads up: the platform I've been using to host my searchable database of #medieval Premonstratensian sisters is ending its free hosting plan on short notice. Since I can't justify spending $100/month (!) on this, or find a viable alternative, it'll go away on Oct 1.
yvonneseale.org/atlas/sisters
One of my all-time favourite series of books!
It was always a "real thing," it just turns out to be a little bit older - and therefore more important - than originally thought. This article demonstrates how the word "copy" can be misinterpreted, especially in the context of medieval manuscript studies. 1/2
"The papal privilege issued in 1195 by Pope Celestine III is one of the few sources that allows for an insight into the history of St Mary’s, Clonard, and Agnes Ní Máelshechlainn’s tenacity in defending her monastery from expropriation during the English conquest of Ireland."
Brian Blessed as Piccolomini in profile, seated on the toilet while other cardinals react with embarrassment and disgust.
This scene went on for such an ungodly length of time. Why are there so many lit candles in the toilet?
Oh my god, there is an extended scene in which we see and hear Cardinal and future Pope BRIAN BLESSED pooping in front of the other cardinals of the conclave. 🫣 What is this movie. Cardinal Lawrence would never.
And since it is BRIAN BLESSED, a man who's always playing to the back of the house, you get scenes like this one in which Piccolomini openly throws his hat into the ring. I am agog.
Brian Blessed in a truly distressing bowl cut wig which, though not visible here, is also tonsured.
Pinturicchio's fresco portrait of Enea Silvio Piccolomini (Pope Pius II), 1502-07. It shows an older man wearing the papal tiara and a blue coak trimmed with gold, seated on a wooden chair draped in red fabric.
I cannot objectively recommend this movie, but what I can say about it is that it features BRIAN BLESSED as Enea Silvio Piccolomini, i.e. the future Pope Pius II. (Does it count as a spoiler if it's for a medieval conclave?)
Movie poster for "The Conclave" (2006)
Going down a series of rabbit holes following yesterday's events led me to the discovery that as well as the more well known "Conclave" (2024) there is also "The Conclave" (2006), an intensely early 2000s made-for-TV-on-a-shoestring-budget movie about the papal conclave of 1458.
