Universal Short Title Catalogue

The call for papers for the second COMLAWEU conference, on the dissemination of the law in Early Modern Europe, is now open!

The deadline for proposals is 31 October 2025.

Any inquiries can be directed to Dr Arthur der Weduwen.

388 years ago TODAY, a chair was thrown at the Bishop of Edinburgh as he read from a book during a service. Riots followed shortly afterwards. In our latest blog, MLitt student William Lewis explores the book at the heart of the storm: www.ustc.ac.uk/news/a-war-o...

In our latest blog, MLitt student Ellen Robertson examines works that were promised by the catalogues of the Frankfurt Book Fair, but not always delivered. You can read it here: www.ustc.ac.uk/news/ellen-r...

The latest issue of our Library Quarterly, dedicated to our work on France, is out now! You can read it and subscribe here: www.ustc.ac.uk/news/ustc-li...

🚨Call for Papers: The 18th St Andrews/USTC Book History Conference on 'Print and Education' will take place 18–20 June 2026.

👉 Further details here: www.ustc.ac.uk/conference

📅 Application deadline: 12 December 2025

📖 We look forward to receiving your proposals!

#CfP #bookhistory #skystorians

Theodore Bibliandri’s translation of Machumetis saracenorum principis, Image courtesy of St Edmundsbury Cathedral. A title page of the Latin translation of the Qur'an, printed in Basel by Johann Oporinus, Nikolaus Brylinger in 1543. This copy was donated to the St James parochial library in Bury St Edmunds in 1595. The marginal notation at the bottom of the page, also in Latin, describes this gift. It reads: "non mihi sed omnibus H. Blagge."

📚Explore the storied lives of Suffolk's parochial library collections in a new blog post: 'Non mihi sed omnibus: Suffolk’s Last Parochial Libraries' by current MLitt student @standrewshist.bsky.social Emily Wildish.📚

#bookhistory #libraryhistory #collectionhistory

ustc.ac.uk/news/non-mih...

Our conference on News and Periodicals is underway with a panel on Political News Cultures! #USTC25

Our 2025 conference on Newspapers and Periodicals is underway with our hybrid workshop! #USTC25

Portrait of George the Bearded, Duke of Saxony by Lucas Cranach the Elder, c. 1534 (Museum der bildenden Künste). In the portrait, a balding and bearded man dressed in a voluminous robe of all black; he is presented in a 3/4 pose. The man's hands are clasped and he wears a two rings. Around his neck is the collar of the Order of the Golden Fleece. The backround is aqua with some behind the figure's head.

Emma Caster, MLitt student @standrewshist.bsky.social, explores the career of the German printer, Wolfgang Stöckel (Müller) in a new blog entitled: 'Struggles and Strifes of a Reformation Printer: Printers and Debt in Germany'
ustc.ac.uk/news/struggl...

#bookhistory #Reformationhistory #earlymodern

The Frigate Peter and Paul in the Port of Amsterdam (17th Century), by Abraham Storck, Historisch Scheepvart Museum, Amsterdam A 17th century Dutch seascape painting illustrating at least 7 sail boats of various sizes, including the frigate of Peter and Paul, as well as a smaller transport row boat. The seas are calm and the sky is covered in swirling and fluffy clouds.

Ahoy there! New blog post!

Demi van Breukelen, master's student @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social & visiting researcher @standrewshist.bsky.social explores:
🌊'A Sea of Print: Printed Treasures in the Dutch Prize Papers Collection'

ustc.ac.uk/news/a-sea-o...
#printhistory #earlymodern #maritimehistory

The Frigate Peter and Paul in the Port of Amsterdam (17th Century), by Abraham Storck, Historisch Scheepvart Museum, Amsterdam A 17th century Dutch seascape painting illustrating at least 7 sail boats of various sizes, including the frigate of Peter and Paul, as well as a smaller transport row boat. The seas are calm and the sky is covered in swirling and fluffy clouds.

Ahoy there! New blog post!

Demi van Breukelen, master's student @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social & visiting researcher @standrewshist.bsky.social explores:
🌊'A Sea of Print: Printed Treasures in the Dutch Prize Papers Collection'

ustc.ac.uk/news/a-sea-o...
#printhistory #earlymodern #maritimehistory

Cover page of the USTC Library Quarterly, issue 8 (May 2025) which notes the contents.

The eighth issue of USTC Library Quarterly is out now!

You can download it and subscribe here: ustc.ac.uk/news/ustc-li...

This special issue is a collaboration with the COMLAWEU project.

Some fabulous discoveries here from the National Library in Edinburgh.

#HabemusPapam

Read all about the early modern conclave and papal election process in this post about rare surviving printed sheets from seventeenth-century conclaves.

Wrote a little blog about some fascinating printed conclave documents I came across in the @natlibscot.bsky.social! 🗝️

Many thanks to the cataloguers of their Special Collections for documenting these objects so diligently!

Detail of two of the [Four voting slips for the election of a Pope]. [Rome?: Reverenda Camera Apostolica?, 16--?], National Library of Scotland, Crawford.B.41(15). Reproduced with permission from materials on loan to the National Library of Scotland from the Balcarres Heritage Trust.

CONCLAVE! 🗝️

As we await white smoke, read about some rare printed objects from early modern conclaves preserved in @natlibscot.bsky.social! In this post, USTC postdoc, @ciaokatet.bsky.social, explores blank conclave vote tallying sheets and sample ballots. #conclave2025 www.ustc.ac.uk/news/conclave

An extract from Cannon’s text, which is held at the National Archives, Kew. 18th century manuscript writing on a warped piece of vellum with fold marks, stains and holes.

Gitika Sanjay, student of Modern History & Economics @standrewshist.bsky.social, explores the archival traces of a 18th-century text in a new post on our blog-'In Defence of ‘Abominable Practice’: Thomas Cannon’s Ancient and Modern Pederasty Investigated and Exemplify’d'!📜
ustc.ac.uk/news/in-defe...

Tracts of Action "Tracts of Action" published on 21 May 2024 by Brill.

How does one learn practical skills from a book? Why were how-to books so popular in the early modern period, who used them and how, and can they even be considered a clearly defined genre? Find out the answer to these and other questions in our edited volume: brill.com/display/titl...

Oil on canvas Portrait of Holy Roman Emperor, Rudolf II by Hans von Aachen, c. 1607, which is now in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna. Rudolf wears a bejeweled black hat topped by a feather and a fashionable lace ruff over his black jacket. Around his neck he wears the toson d'or, the symbol of the chivalric order of the Golden Fleece.

Cheers to a new blog!🍷

'Cheap Wine: A Warring Man’s Priority' by Zina Gharakhani, MLitt student in Early Modern and Reformation History @standrewshist.bsky.social

🍇 Explore wine industry regulations in Hapsburg Prague during the reign of Rudolf II.

#earlymodern

www.ustc.ac.uk/news/cheap-w...

We are delighted to unveil the provisional programme for our upcoming conference on Newspapers and Periodicals, organised by @zbrookman.bsky.social, @apettegree.bsky.social and Arthur der Weduwen, which will take place on 17 June and from 19-21 June 2025. #USTC25

** We apologise for the typo in the first post in the thread. Like early modern printers who are rushing to print the latest news and edicts, we sometimes have misprints too!

To learn more about the 5-year Communicating the Law in Europe, 1500-1750 (COMLAWEU) project in the @standrewshist.bsky.social visit: comlaweu.wp.st-andrews.ac.uk/all-posts/

A seventeenth-century courtier dressed in a simpler style with fancier clothes he has abandoned bing arranged on a chair by a servant. The setting is an early modern interior with a tapestry on the wall and an open leaded window behing the courtier. Chairs line the wall. Below a poem in French explains the courtier's costume changes in response to a sumptuary edict.

🎺HEAR YE, HEAR YE:

We are happy announce our latest post, 'The Fabric of Everyday Life: Sumptuary Laws in Early Modern France', written by @cmfgillain.bsky.social, a postdoctoral researcher on the Communicating the Law in Europe, 1500-1750 project!

Read all about it: ustc.ac.uk/news/the-fab...

Have you found this saying in any earlier print or another language? Let us know in the comments!

#bookhistory #march #earlymodern #earlymodernadages #spring #windyweather

One of the earliest appearances of this adage in print is on page 10 of James Howell’s allegorical text, Dendrologia, Dodona's Grove, Or, The Vocall Forrest (London, Thomas Badger for Humphrey Mosley, 1640), USTC no. 3021604.

www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/302...

The title page of a seventeenth-century book. The title and borders are printed using a letter press while the image below the title is an engraving. The title begins with the Greek word Dendrologia. The title below is described as Dodona's Grove, or the Vocal Forest. In the engraving two figures tend to a garden at the base of a tree: one a bearded man dressed in classicizing garb waters plants using a watering can; another figure who faces away from the viewer kneels and tends to plants. The name of God in Hebrew appears in a sunburst that emerges from the top of the tree. There are various Biblical citations and quotations from Virgil that surround the scene.

'the moneth of March, which entreth like a Lion 🦁, but goeth out like a Lamb 🐑.’

🌬Today’s windy weather in Scotland, where the @universalstc.bsky.social is based, shows some truth in this saying. And we certainly hope that the second part holds up as the end of March approaches!

The title page of a sixteenth century book entitled: 'LEXICON LATINOPOLONI-CUM EX OPTIMIS LATINAE LINGVAE SCRIPTORI-BUS CONCINNATUM, which is dated to 1564. There are some faded manuscript annotations under the main title of the text.

Learn more about the relationship between Polish print and the Latin language in the early modern period in our latest blog ‘We are Poles, so, of course, we print in Latin’ by COMLAWEU PhD student in @standrewshist.bsky.social, Paweł Pietrowcew!

www.ustc.ac.uk/news/we-are-...

View more images from the copy in the Médiathèque municipale (Rés. E2707_1) in Orléans, France, which has happily been digitised!

www.bvh.univ-tours.fr/Consult/inde...

an illustrated title page of an early modern book

We're excited to reach 1,000 followers (and counting) on Bluesky!

In honour of this milestone, we'd like to share our catalogued edition with the USTC no. 1000:

Les illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye Lyon, Etienne Baland et Jean Rocher, 1510

www.ustc.ac.uk/editions/1000

You can explore similar editions to those described in this essay using the classification feature on our website, which allows you to filter books related to *Botany & Zoology* tinyurl.com/Botany-and-Z...