magistraetmater.bsky.social

Legislation and Christians author: James Corke-Webster Abstract This article challenges the long-established orthodoxy concerning the legal basis of the persecution of Christians under the Roman empire. First, it demonstrates the problems with the current consensus, which holds both that the only extant legal enactment pertinent to the persecution of Christians before Decius is the rescript of Trajan to Pliny, and that Christians were always charged for their name alone. Second, it tests an alternative hypothesis, that Christians could be charged with multiple crimes, as part of the routine litigious culture of the empire, and that this was periodically exacerbated by legal enactments that did not target Christians but could be mobilised against them.

this looks very very interesting!

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Is this when he mogs Lothar II for wifemaxxing?

I propose to make universal the old policy of the Blackfriars conference at the American Shakespeare Center:

If you do not end your paper on time, you will be forced to exit, pursued by a bear. Literally, a bear will come take your paper from you.

Not as bad as my aunt who retired from being a missionary in Kenya and then visited Oberammegau. At one point she was addressed in German and automatically replied in Gikuyu, her default "foreign language".

In the Italian Lakes region I tried to order some bread in my bad Italian and was completely flummoxed when they replied in German, presuming I was a German tourist.

The e-book version is already available, including my chapter on dodgy Carolingian priests, Simon on Carolingian coins and many other great things: brill.com/display/titl...

Tuesday 7th July 2026 at @imc-leeds.bsky.social is going to be Jinty Nelson appreciation/memorial day, with confirmation of 4 sessions and a roundtable in her honour.

JSTOR Seeklight adds transcript generation for text-based materials - News - About JSTOR JSTOR Seeklight now generates transcripts, boosting discoverability, accessibility, and research impact for digital collections.

This sounds like useful academic-related AI: JSTOR doing automated transcripts of handwritten archival material as part of their digital stewardship services: about.jstor.org/news/jstor-s...

Of interest to anyone in UK thinking about jobs in historic libraries/archives: Lambeth Palace Library Careers Open Day 30th October: www.lambethpalacelibrary.info/careers-open...

The Political Agency of Royal Women: A Comparative Analysis of Eight Premodern States According to Societal Rules and Roles - Journal of Archaeological Research Comparative analysis of women rulers and main wives of kings in eight premodern states around the globe reveals similar patterns of political agency, or the opportunity and ability to take political action. Queen rulers, regents, and main wives substituting for their husbands in their absence made policy, but they had somewhat less political agency than male rulers. Main wives’ political agency took the forms of influencing policy and people’s behavior (sometimes through their role as patron to others), interceding between their kin and their husbands, advocating for one party or the other, spying, and conspiring. Therefore, women’s political agency ought to be part of any political study. This study builds on the anthropological/archaeological study of agency by drawing attention to royal women’s political agency and showing how the analysis of structural rules and the roles of kings, queen rulers, and main wives illuminates the societal structure in which agency is embedded. By analyzing premodern societies this way, we learn that there is remarkable similarity of agency behaviors among royal women in the eight sample societies, even though the societies emerged independently of one another.

Interesting comparative paper for those working on medieval queenship: Paula Sabloff: "The Political Agency of Royal Women: A Comparative Analysis of Eight Premodern States According to Societal Rules and Roles"
link.springer.com/article/10.1.... Suggests a lot of structural similarities.

Transcript of London Guildhall court case from 1385 involving Elizabeth Moryng, "under color of the craft of embroidery" pimping out her apprentices.

Today's @imc-leeds.bsky.social catch-up: paper 142a from @taylorcowdery.bsky.social on dodgy sexual goings-on by London embroiderers (who sound rather like Terry Pratchett's Seamstresses' Guild)

The vast Lambeth Palace Library Bookcase - LASSCO - England's prime resource for Architectural Antiques, Salvage Curiosities The vast Lambeth Palace Library Bookcase originally by Edward Blore c.1830, later reformatted c.1945

If you have a VERY large room, Lambeth Palace Library is selling off its old bookshelves.

www.lassco.co.uk/product/the-...

You know him for
/Against the Christians/,
/Homeric Questions/,
/On the Cave of the Nymphs/,
the /Isagoge/,
and /On Not Eating Animals/.
More from Porphyry coming soon! Like the Pearlsong, this volume will be available as an open-access PDF and a beautiful hard copy.

Hadn't realised that the Connecting People book is OA as a pdf - have grabbed it from trivent-publishing.eu/home/197-369....

Judith of France : Leighton, Margaret, 1922-1976 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive 281 pages : 22 cm

TIL that someone wrote a children's novel about Charles the Bald's daughter, Judith of Flanders: archive.org/details/judi...

Death-bed scene where Death (with impressive biceps) is choking an unresisting young man.

Today's @imc-leeds.bsky.social catch-up, where in #s511 Daniela Rywiková has a rather more assertive Czech Death than I remember from Terry Pratchett...

John Gillingham once got into trouble when doing In Our Time on Radio 4 for calling King John "a shit".

Any UK-based PhDs working on medieval women interested in giving a lighting talk to this seminar? It'd be good to get some premodern representation.

Having just seen @rorynaismith.bsky.social on #IMC2025 catchup, I now want the Libellus Æthelwoldi Tales, in which the scheming abbot and bishop try and do down poor Aelfwold of Mardleybury and his family among others. Lots of scheming in beautiful rural locations.

Text of witch's charm (trial of Matteuccia, Todi, 1428): starts "Lumbrica, lumbricaia, che tieni core et anima"

Today's gem from 2025 catch-up sessions from @imc-leeds.bsky.social. A vernacular charm against worms from C15 Italian witch trials from Paolo Nanni in #s721. There are early medieval Latin anti-worm charms as well: maybe we need a long-duree study?

That is both ingenious and desperate by Arnulf!

Summary of C13 charter by Cristiana Ledet; witnesses include Johanne de Mondene, Johanne Bastard and Johanne Foliot.

More @imc-leeds.bsky.social catch-up today, including another unfortunate medieval name (from paper by Adrian Jobson #s1107). When many of the charter witnesses are called John and you're the one no-one likes...

This is obviously serious, and solidarity to my fellow Unison members here, but they will need to take precautions that management doesn’t just list the strike action as a historic re-enactment attraction.

One reason for reissuing is presumably to link the previous grant to a new king and thus enhance the prestige/authority of the grant. Which also explains why no-one bothers forging charters by loser kings like Carloman.

IMC 2025: Carolingian moral authority and notorious sinners Generic picture of speaker at IMC I had to cancel going to the International Medieval Congress 2025 in person at the last minute because of health problems, but I did at least get to attend virtual…

@imc-leeds.bsky.social paper inspired blog post on how notorious sinners destroyed the moral authority of Carolingian assemblies: magistraetmater.wordpress.com/2025/07/31/i...

Chicago Manual of Style has "personal communication" as a citation type, so you could adapt that: www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/tools_citati.... For magic eightballs, maybe have the manufacturer as corporate author?

If you are not sure how to cite your ouija board messages, here is a sample authority record for referring to the spirit of Princess Diana (lccn.loc.gov/n98096157)

Screenshot from NPPM database of medieval names: lemmatized name is Radgunth, form in the text is "ratcunt".

When your medieval parents name you after a Merovingian saint, but the scribe's rubbish at spelling (from nppm.ub.uni-tuebingen.de/gast/einzelb...)

Recently published: OA translation by @shahansean.bsky.social and Stephen Shoemaker of Strategius of Mar Saba, "The Capture of Jerusalem by the Persians in 614 CE" (isac.uchicago.edu/research/pub...) #MedievalSky

Michelle C. Wang and Ryan R. Overbey (ed.s). Beyond the Silk and Book Roads. Rethinking Networks of Exchange and Material Culture. @degruyterbrill.bsky.social #AAS2025 #chinesestudies #history #silkroad #books