@richardcschlag
PhD candidate researching politics, government, conflict, and authority in the 15 C Holy Roman Empire @ox.ac.uk, he/him https://oxford.academia.edu/RichardSchlag https://academic.oup.com/gh/article/42/1/1/7485842
Check it out, we're planning a special issue of @frenchhistory.bsky.social for the 700th anniversary of the advent of the Valois dynasty! Details and timeline at the link below, but don't hesitate to get in touch if you have any questions 😊
Any recs for female literacy and manuscript culture in medieval England? (For a student, I'm not up on my English context!)
A friend has asked me to share this petition to defend the Classical Languages major at Iowa, which is slated for closure despite having 18 majors. If ancient languages aren't supported at universities, where will they be? www.change.org/p/keep-the-c...
Enhanced image of palimpsested page, original writing in red; a large illuminated 'E' can be seen in bottom right quadrant.
Somehow, an 8th-c. English liturgical manuscript ended up in Mount Sinai (where it was palimpsested and written over by a Christian Arabic scribe). For more info: Michelle Brown, austriaca.at/0xc1aa5572%2...
Copy of medieval miniature of dragon with tongue sticking out and wings raised on a brown rock. Original from Getty Museum, MS. Ludwig XV 3, fol. 89
Same image showing all the medieval pigments applied
Here's a cute little dragon I painted on calfskin (copied from a 13th century bestiary) using traditional medieval techniques and pigments (labelled in second image) #medievalmanuscripts #medievalscriptorium #bookhistory
From mid-February 2026, the MGH is able to make all articles from the DA and NA available in digital form, fully searchable and open access! #medievalsky
mgh.de/en/publicati...
A gilded portrait of Richard II sat on his throne at Pontefract Castle
Happy #ValentinesDay... unless you're Richard II 😬
Did you know that Richard II died on (or around) 14 February 1400 at Pontefract Castle?
He likely died of starvation - either self-inflicted, or a cruel punishment.
Shakespeare over-dramatised this (of course).
More info: wmandc.co/richard-ii
🚨 History buffs of the Holy Roman Empire: We built an app to visualize rulers' itineraries between 919 and 1519 based on the Regesta Imperii. Thank you @albertwendsjo.bsky.social for all the help!
Explore here: carlmc.shinyapps.io/hre-itinerar...
Please let us know of any issues and feedback!
when you and your co-authors try to find that one (1) footnote you definitely saw the other day
Beheld the stunning Tapestry of the Apocalypse in Angers, commissioned in the late 14th century by Count Louis I of Anjou. Lots of crypto-portraits of English villains (like the Black Prince with his ostrich feather). And a Holy Roman Emperor with an accurate crown among the heavenly martyrs!
"Eighty-two years after his execution by the Gestapo on June 16, 1944, the Jewish historian and resistance fighter Marc Bloch will be inducted into the Pantheon on June 23... His family requested that 'the far right, in all its forms, be excluded from any participation in the ceremony.'"
Rabbits capture, try and execute a hunter. The Smithfield Decretals, decorated in London, England, in the 1340s: Royal MS 10 E IV, f. 59v-61v
Bad bunnies from long ago
www.bl.uk/stories/blog...
In more #SuperbOwl medieval content, here's a very #BadBunny:
(for more, see www.bl.uk/stories/blog...)
Lihkku beivviin! Today (6 Feb) is the Sámi National Day. I've written a short piece on Sámi history in my hometown. At the moment, only available in Norwegian, but I'll try to post an English translation on my blog
kystmuseene.no/berlevag/sam...
👇👇👇👇
Three-color woodblock printed illustration of different types of lunar eclipses, with the process described in the posted text.
Latest in a series of posts on the Linda Hall Library's earliest editions of Sacrobosco's book on late medieval astronomy, combined with Georg Peurbach's planetary models and including an early use of printing with color woodblocks: www.lindahall.org/about/news/s... #HistSTM #MedievalSky
Need a gift for your history lover valentine?
www.medievalists.net/2025/10/new-...
CALL FOR PAPERS: PERFORMING EVIL: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres, 1700-2000'. 4 & 5 June 2026, Leuven. This conference explores the tangled histories of supernatural, diabolic evil and all kinds of spectral apparitions in the last three centuries – Walter Scott’s ‘malignant and unhappy beings’. Specifically, it is interested in how and why ghosts, spirits and related apparitional phenomena were framed as diabolic, demonic or malign manifestations from the afterlife. Diabolic connotations of ghosts and spirits did meaningful cultural work. They were mobilised to discredit ghost beliefs and spiritual practices, to delegitimise competing beliefs, or to invest doctrinal arguments with occult authority. They could also function as tools of scepticism and ridicule as well as triggers of wonder, fear and religiosity. Put differently, the nexus of ghosts and evil is deeply historical. And it was often articulated through performative means: in gestures and expressions of (dis)belief, in visual and textual representations, in séance rooms, on the stage and on the page. Emerging from this nexus are theatrical spirits of evil, staged, embodied, and made legible through mediation and display. In this sense, every ghost is a theatrical ghost. Through the focus on the construction and staging of diabolic spirits, this conference aims to develop a methodological framework for studying historical forms of occultism and demonology more broadly in terms of performance.
Exploring how the relationship of spectrality and evil has shifted in shape over time and across different cultures, the conference invites contributions that can consider a wide range of historical actors – clerics, mediums, ghost-hunters, debunkers, necromancers, stage performers, eyewitnesses. This conference aims to study cultural intersections and interactions to arrive at a more granular understanding of discursive, practical and material connections between spirits and evil. At the same time this lens zooms out, making visible broader dynamics of knowledge construction in specific historical moments. How, for instance, did hauntings and possessions shape communities and audiences? How did religious or folkloric ideas about the devil inform spectral encounters? We hope to bring together historians, art historians, theatre and literary scholars, folklorists and anthropologists from every stage in their career around the above questions. We welcome 20-minute papers on topics that include but are by no means limited to: - making spectral evil visible: performance, arts, media, technologies, popular cultures - making spectral evil invisible: popular and occult knowledge circulation - performing (un)belief: practices and rhetoric, summoning and debunking on the stage (from popular stages to the lecture hall and the laboratory) - materiality of spectres: the function of bodies and objects - diabolic spirits and (intellectual, vernacular, theological, folkloric) ideas about morality, mortality and temporality - occult performance and ‘cultural scripts’ of ghost encounters (from necromancy to poltergeists) - affect and emotions: fear, grief, trauma… and hope Send abstracts (c.250 words) and bios (c.100 words) to kristof.smeyers@kuleuven.be before 21 March 2026. Please do get in touch if you have any questions.
Hi everyone, I'm organising a conference in Leuven, 4-5 June, and you're all invited*! It's called 'Performing evil: the mediation and display of diabolic spectres 1700-2000' and here is the call for papers (get in touch if you'd like a pdf!). Please share widely!
*to submit an abstract before 21/3
I am introducing the Melt ICE Act to end funding for immigrant detention and monitoring.
We have seen the danger in infusing resources into DHS’s abuses of power. Funding for ICE is fuel for human suffering.
It’s time to start melting ICE.
Another amazing discovery which pushes back the oldest known cave art by over 15,000 years!!!
And the professor who led the project is Adam Brumm, brother of Joe (the creator of Bluey!), and that’s why Bandit the dog is a paleo-archaeologist in the show! 😁
www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...
Frankly, all those Low Countries Habsburg ladies. You can't move for books about a psychopath king's wives, some of whom he murdered, in Waterstones, while you've got this string extraordinary female leaders just waiting for a bestselling series.
Worn papyrus with drawings of figures, symbols, and writing in Coptic. More here https://smarthistory.org/coptic-magical-text/
Coptic spell to Acquire a Beautiful Voice, 6th–7th century CE, Egypt, ink on papyrus, 37.3 x 25.4 cm (Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University, New Haven)
archives.yale.edu/repositories...
Stip: Remote Fellowship for Ukrainians abroad and displaced scholars "Documenting Russia’s War Against Ukraine"
https://www.hsozkult.de/grant/id/stip-159595
Marburg, 15.12.2025-31.01.2026, Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung, Bewerbungsschluss: 31.01.2026 Remote Fellowship …
A kneeling skeleton, seen from behind, reading a book on a shelf. Etching by or after J. Gamelin, 1778/1779. Wellcome Collection https://wellcomecollection.org/works/zern7znb
"I am still reading the book ..." #bookhistory
For #FindsFriday a map of Danish single finds of Carolingian coins from 2016 to 2025, most unpublished. This is for a chapter in a book being edited by @ccooijmans.bsky.social. It shows that Frankish coins were reaching all parts of Denmark, not just trading centres or royal estates.
Save this, it's perfect.
Are you a scholar of the fifteenth century and have an interest in the British Isles and its wider connections? If so, then you will want to know that @memsunikent.bsky.social will be hosting the 2026 Fifteenth Century Conference in Canterbury and the CfP is now open: www.kent.ac.uk/medieval-ear...
✍ Introducing ✍
Sharpie, a letterform recognition game for beginner #EarlyModern #palaeography
gjhilton.github.io/Sharpie/
AKA What I Did Over Reading Week.
#skystorians I’d be so grateful if you had time to share or take a look and tell me what sucks and needs fixing.
Love g 🗃️
The Courtauld is offering a a new fully funded Peter Fergusson PhD Scholarship in English Medieval Architecture for eligible projects focusing on England from the eleventh to the early sixteenth centuries. Statement of intents are due by 17 November 2025.
Fissures: Gender and Political Crisis 17-18 September 2026 Pembroke College, University of Cambridge Gendered work on medieval popular politics has tended to revolve around the exceptional. This workshop explores how studies of gender can reconfigure discourses of medieval political community. We ask how attending to gendered bodies and identities might help us better understand the fissures in political culture in medieval Europe. Marking, for example, women’s participation as either absent or rare confines their involvement to the historical margins. How did literary as well as non-literary texts from various genres, ranging from the thirteenth to the sixteenth centuries, engage with gendered political action? How did ideas of gender stabilise or destabilise political performances? We invite abstracts for 25-minute papers, as well as expressions of interest for participation. We welcome papers with a historical, literary, or interdisciplinary focus. Potential topics could include but are not limited to: • Frameworks for understanding non-normative gender expressions in political spaces. • Studies of politics at the intersection of gendered, queer, or trans methodologies. • Histories of masculinities in political community. • Emotion and/or Affect • Weaponized/defensive gender • Manoeuvring bodies through political crisis • Inclusion and exclusion • Different sites of political discourse, such as domestic and non-violent conflict. Collectively, the papers will interrogate the role of gender in political discourse. Selected papers may be considered for inclusion in an edited volume. Means-based bursaries for speakers may be available by further application. Please submit a title and abstract of no more than 200 words to Alice Raw (ar889@cam.ac.uk) and Abbie Fray (abigail.fray@unibe.ch) by 16 January 2026.
Call for Papers! Fissures: Gender and Political Crisis #medievalsky #Fissures2026