@andrewayton.bsky.social
Historian (ret’d Univ of Hull, UK) working on late medieval military, maritime, soc & economic; & Napoleonic. MSS, prosopography, networks. Classical music, wildlife, cinema, coins, postal history, Dorset, France, Hungary. 🦋& #Shugborough Staffs pictures.
For lovers of Schubert’s music: Nicholas Spice’s piece - far more than a book review on Lieder - is well worth your time. Particularly insightful on the piano sonatas, but also much else; I shall be returning to this music with renewed enthusiasm.
‘Rental Family’ (Hikari, 2026) has been dismissed by Peter Bradshaw as a ‘pointless #Japanese role-play drama’, but - not for the first time - I disagree. And so do most reviewers. My wife, who is hard to please, loved it. #cinema
www.rottentomatoes.com/m/rental_fam...
#FRHistory 🗃️
#skystorians #history #copyrights
I could use some guidance from UK-based historians on standard copyright permissions etc regarding materials coming from the family of a recently deceased historian.
It looks as though I might be leading a small group trying to pull together an unfinished work.
Felix Liebermann owned quite a lot of very old books, including first editions of all previous editions of the early English laws. Lucky him! Here are his copies of Lambarde (1568), Whelock (1644) and Wilkins (1721)! 1/3
The late Anglo-Saxon west doorway at Holy Trinity Church in Colchester. Dating to the mid-11th century, the doorway incorporates re-used Roman bricks. 📸 My own. #AdoorableThursday #Colchester #AngloSaxon
@davidgrummitt.bsky.social is on here. And, just now, @seanc1509.bsky.social
You can almost hear the crotchety voice of this retired WWI general in his volunteer form to help with evacuating London in 1939.
"Previous experience: ??? - see books of reference
Available now for voluntary social work if required? I don't know what social work means"
Check out this new 12-episode film series that follows biologist & Darwin/Wallace scholar Andrew Berry as he explores, with history lessons, research in evolutionary #biology at the Museum of Comparative Zoology (@mczharvard.bsky.social): www.thecloseryoulook.com
#evolution #museums #histsci #HPS
A hugely heartening piece of #GoodGreenNews for butterfly lovers! Fluttering tentatively off the extinct list, the Large Tort is the image for the GGN feed, after my socks were knocked right off in 2024 when I spotted one near here. Must check again, locally! #insects 🐙🦋 #conservation 🌍 #ecology
Photos thrown up by your ‘phone. This from a few years ago: me and Dvořák in Prague.
Great to see Margaret Beaufort getting a long overdue episode of BBC Radio 4’s In Our Time this week. If you’d like to learn more about my research on Margaret’s palace at Collyweston and her links to Stamford, mentioned in the episode, I explore both topics in articles for @tudorplaces.bsky.social
Fascinating new article by Nick Karn, focusing on the material aspects of charters to identify forgeries— including upside-down seals! Open access here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
I guess I didn’t wake up thinking I needed to know the names of the 279 named triremes ⛵️in the 4th century BCE Athenian navy, but it appears we all do. link.springer.com/article/10.1... I do like that 3.58% had animal names like Λεοντῆ (lion skin) and Λέαινα (lioness). Greek epigraphy is fun! 🪦
CALL FOR PAPERS: Share your research at the Centre for Port and Maritime History's 30th Anniversary Conference, Liverpool, 10-11 September 2026. CPMH includes @ljmuofficial.bsky.social , @liverpooluni.bsky.social & Liverpool's Maritime Museum. Submit abstract to n.j.white@ljmu.ac.uk by 15 May.
Please share: due to withdrawal I have a space on my castles panel for #LeedsIMC.
If you’ve an idea needs airing on time and temporalities in castles, give me a shout/submit via link! imc-leeds.confex.com/imc/2026/pre... @imc-leeds.bsky.social @castlestudies.bsky.social
Original CfP below ⬇️
Coincidentally, rather good ‘In Our Time’ today on Margaret Beaufort
www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...
Great good news: Sean Cunningham has joined BlueSky. Follow him @seanc1509.bsky.social and read his books.
Publication of my short #PenguinMonarchs book on Henry VII on #WorldBookDay is wonderful. Enjoy the early #Tudor conspiracies, tragedies & @jodyhewgill.bsky.social‘s amazing cover painting. Thanks to the team @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social
A little snatch of Chiffchaff from garden today. The bird is just visible, moving slightly, on the right margin of the video.
Here in Blighty, we seem to be reporting our first Chiffchaff song of the year, so let me add Shugborough, Staffs to the list. A bit earlier than usual for this area.
In other news … more news like this, important in its way (but let’s face it, worthy of a chuckle) would be a welcome relief.
Your apt description reminds me, of course, of Compans, who never rose above divisional level (thank goodness, so avoided the Hundred Days); but superb at that level and an excellent chief of staff, incl in 1805 under Lannes. He was associated with Moreau, so that forever blighted his prospects.
I have sampled Dorset (real social history here) & Norfolk - Dan Cruickshank on tremendous form: by challenging & correcting Pevsner at times he really underscores P’s remarkable achievement. Susie Harries’s bio of Pevsner was one of the books that I read last year that has really stayed with me.
Thanks for posting this Mathew. I don’t recall it from the time of broadcast, but what a delight: the episodes sampled so far were most enjoyable: my beloved Dorset, and - very different - Dan Cruickshank on Norfolk. Having read Susie Harries’s biography of Pevsner last year, I felt well-prepared.
Hautala, Roman. Masters of the Earth: A History of the Golden Horde, 1219–1502. London: Reaktion Books, 2026.
reaktionbooks.co.uk/work/masters...
#mongolsky
#tengri
#medievalsky
That’s wonderful, Richard. And somewhere in the deep recesses I think I now recall reading that somewhere. Yes, we’re working our way through the box set again; my wife read Conan Doyle in Hungarian as a child.
Yes, I think you are right.
