Fergal Leonard

Recent purchase at a second-hand bookshop based mostly on how fantastic the cover art is--although I have heard a little about the strange and tumultuous careers of the Shirleys, so I'm sure it'll be an interesting read!

Cover of JOAD RAYMOND WREN: The Great Exchange Making the News in Early Modern Europe

#onmydesktoday is a big and timely book about European communication by the great Joad Raymond Wren. Exploring a world of #earlymodern newsmongers, translators and postmasters, Joad highlights that news moved and were shared, and that news binds us together. Good news for #skystorians.

...but their presence may explain the high opinion of the diplomat and military theorist Sir John Smythe, a witness to the wars in Flanders, who praised the skill of "Light horsemen borderers" with "speares in the field" as "they... by their continuall exercise are so skilful with al such weapons".

I don't know enough about how English expeditionary forces were recruited, what other routes would have been open to borderers to find employment in these wars, and whether they might have served as companies of light horsemen as they had in Henry's continental expeditions a generation before...

On the other side of the border, Martin's Arch Elliot was particularly dangerous because "he hath been brought vpp in the warrs, in ffladers, & Fraunce"--or at least, so Lord Warden Ralph Eure claimed when he reported that Elliot had been slain on an illegal cross-border incursion.

Sir Philip Sidney

The warfare of the Dutch revolt offered opportunities for the skilled horsemen of the 'riding surnames'.

One was the infamous Redesdale murderer George Hall, who fled and was outlawed but allowed to return home at the request of Sir Philip Sidney, "w[ith] whome he s[er]ued in the Lowe cuntries".

A particularly stark example of iconoclast damage: the tomb of Jan van Arkel, bishop of Utrecht from 1342 to 1364, damaged in 1580, in Domkerk, Utrecht.

Wonderful artefact at the Plantin-Moretus museum in Antwerp: weights for dozens of different coins from a range of countries! I noticed ones for English angels and rose crowns.

At the Bourse in sixteenth-century Antwerp you could enter a sweepstake for the Papal election, where you were assigned a random cardinal and won the pot if they were chosen!

(Geoffrey Parker, The Dutch Revolt).

We might have missed them but St George's church and its graveyard is wonderfully cared for by volunteers.

While wandering around Portland Island yesterday we came across the graves of Mary Way and William Lano, two of the four people killed by a press-gang in the Easton Massacre, 1803.

Many busy things this month!

Pleased to have presented my paper, “Stubborn, Ungratful Carriage: Early Quakerism and the Politics of Poor Relief” at @socialhistsoc.bsky.social earlier this month.

Also pleased to have finally graduated from Durham (1 year post viva!) 🎉💃🏻

Feeling very grateful ❤️

Departmental Lecturer in Global and Imperial History at University of Oxford Discover an exciting academic career path as a Departmental Lecturer in Global and Imperial History at jobs.ac.uk. Don't miss out on this job opportunity - apply today!

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*reading is my happy place* #booksky

Meme. Medieval illumination of a woman drawing. She is sitting at a desk, and writing in a book with her right hand. Her left hand is holding something that looks like it might be a Twizzler. There is a box on the table, which looks like it holds her pen (and her Twizzlers). At her feet is a small dog, groaking like it's going out of style. The woman is sitting in a high-backed chair, and is indoors, under a window. She is wearing a blue gown is draping sleeves, and a white hennin with roses on it. She's clearly wealthier than I am. Without any contradictory evidence, we can assume that the woman is writing a sort of Beowulf / City of Ladies fanfic crossover piece, called something like "Grendel and Berit" in which a strong northern prince gangs up with a swamp monster to try to shake down a group of women who are building a mead hall on a moor. The women tear his arms off and send him home to mamma. Meme text reads: "Dear Otwell, Get your own damned eels. These ones are mine."

In 1544 an English merchant in Calais named Otwell Johnson wrote to his brother John, & asked him to remind their sister to buy some eels in London for Lent.

Which is basically the 16th C. version of texting someone to stop by the store on the way home.
🗃️🧪

The deep roots of paganism | The Observer A revelatory study shows how pagans not only survived the spread of Christianity but also made its practices their own

I cannot wait to read @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social 's new book, reviewed here by Rowan Williams (!) for the Observer, observer.co.uk/culture/book...

New word of the day: desideratum.

From Janette Dillon, Performance and Spectacle in Hall's Chronicle, a chance charity shop find.

'Scholars interested in monasticism, precursors of the Enlightenment, and early modern British and Irish history should not miss the essays included in this collection'. Review in Sixteenth Century Journal of the first volume in the series @16csociety.bsky.social #history #skystorians #nuntastic

"what is ye cause the wind makes such a nos[e] and cannot be seene" is another great one. Good question! 🤔🤔🤔🤔

"what is ye cause a dooge shews his loue most in his Taile" is just... 🥰🥰🥰, especially after some, ah, considerations your reverend probably didn't approve of.

This is absolutely incredible! So, so, so funny, and also really poignant at the same time! "what is ye cause we dream of things wee neuer saw, or knew, or euer heard of" is particularly striking. And so many of them are the same sort of things we still wonder about today.

Derbyshire man Leonard Wheatcroft built up a list of questions in 1671, 29 in total. Loving these today, incredible train of thought: 'why have men Beards & women none', 'why have sum women Beads & sum none'. The list get better and better as it goes on too

Looking for #earlymodern English descriptions of #fairy clothing. Can anyone help?
#earlymodernsky
I have the 1635 'description of the king and queene of fayries, their habit', and its expansion in Musarum Deliciae, 1655, but would be interested in other sources.

The 'border causes' resolved by the commissioners for the treaty of Carlisle (1597) feature many bills entered by women, complaining of the theft of their livestock and goods, but only one against a woman: this complaint that the goodwife of Newham had been involved in the theft of two oxen.

Blue glass shades, with side shades and wire frames.

Tinted, double-hinged spectacles, c.1790. Many opticians believed green or blue glass was easier on the eyes and would reduce glare; while clear glass was too soft and would distort images. This example is from the Wellcome Collection in London.

Just over a week to go until the closing date for this...

Assistant Professor (Teaching Focussed) in Roman History (110578-0625) at University of Warwick Apply now for the Assistant Professor (Teaching Focussed) in Roman History (110578-0625) role on jobs.ac.uk - the leading job board for higher education jobs. View details.

I know it's only part time, since this is cover for Alison Cooley being made head of Warwick Institute of Advanced Studies (take it up with the powers who decide these buy outs), but there is a 3 year teaching gig at in Roman history at Warwick.
www.jobs.ac.uk/job/DNX770/a...

Supposed parallels between the 'border reivers' and Robin Hood and his merry men have sometimes been made--my favourite example is this wonderful picture of the arrest of Kinmont Willie Armstrong by Carlisle artist Joseph Simpson, where he's dressed in the classic green tunic and feathered cap!

In 1597, the Northumbrian John Brown described some of the infamous thieves of Tynedale and Redesdale as, "as notoryous in this age... as ever was Robyn Hoode in his tyme”--drawing on older versions of the myths where Robin could be more of a violent anti-hero than the egalitarian version we know.

On the other hand, the pub has a gorgeous pub dog.