Charles West

🔘 📖 The last of this semester's reading groups will be held tomorrow.

⬇️ 💬 Read the below article and join us at 5pm (in Room 1.26, Old Medical School, Doorway 4) to take part!

3D reconstruction of the early medieval timber churches of Northumbrian-period Whithorn monastery, by Smart History, University of St Andrews, available on Open Virtual Worlds https://stage.openvirtualworlds.org/reconstruction-page/?itemid=4113

Me, tomorrow!

How to (re)build an early medieval church: new light on the Whithorn ‘minster’ and shrine

@firstmillennia.bsky.social 18:00, Tuesday 2 Dec
Sydney Smith Lecture Theatre, University of Edinburgh, Old Medical School, Teviot Place (enter via doorway 1)

Trading firm XTX donates £26mn for maths research at UK universities Billionaire Alex Gerko says Britain is missing out on top academic talent

Over 100 PhD and postdoc positions in pure maths funded at 7 English and Scottish universities by philanthropist who critiques government for failing to invest ('dereliction of duty') in a strategically vital field.

"Lapidabatur a populo: Stoning as Collective Execution and Exile in Early Medieval Iberia (Fifth–Twelfth Centuries)", Exile and Execution in Medieval and Early Modern, eds. Larissa Tracy, Gila Aloni, Brill, 61-83
@degruyterbrill.bsky.social @dgb-history.bsky.social
brill.com/display/book...

I'm writing a textbook for the study of medieval manuscripts in the 21st century & am developing a framework that will be referenced throughout the book: ten touchpoints for medieval book history in Europe with six drivers of change. Here's how it will play out... (image: Codex Amiatinus) 🧵

Spaniel, stream, tunnel

Cuthbert, who has taken to playing pooh sticks, waits impatiently for the tennis ball to reappear.

ERC’s new €7m Plus Grants open to researchers at any career stage - Research Professional News European Research Council president describes scheme as part attempt to lure US talent

This is so problematic. Creating big-money grants (7m EUR!) is such a travesty. Instead of funding 1 researcher, why not fund 25 with smaller grants? It would create more ideas, secure more careers, and create so much more innovative knowledge. www.researchprofessionalnews.com/rr-news-euro...

Huge respect to the papers for finding both an 88 year old worried about the tax bill on her 6 bedroom Kensington house and a 20 year old fretting about only being able to save £12k a year tax free.
Top work all around. These are not easy case studies to find.

Fascinating to see which publishers are most active in medieval history.

The Hobo A panoramic history of America’s first climate migrants

I regret to inform you that I am going to start promoting my book on here. I do not regret to inform you that the press has given it a stunning cover.

The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants -- out next summer with Princeton University Press.

press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Still reeling from the Stanford report on Brexit. Reduced GDP by up to 8% and investment by as much as 18%. The UK Treasury would have £40 billion more each year if Britain had remained in the EU. Devastating self-immolation.

"Let no one dare to kill another’s female slave or half-slave as if she were a witch..."

So ordered the Lombard king Rothari. Our new blog post examines his edict as well as an extract from Gregory of Tours about an enslaved woman burned at the stake.

Read more here: tinyurl.com/y7976pjs

The Maritime Britain project has recently teamed up with the Lloyd's Register Foundation to map its first Register Book and make it searchable. You can find the site here maritimebritain.org/english_merc...

We've got some HUGE news! We've DOUBLED in size overnight! Not only have we added "some" more Cairo Genizah fragments, but "ALL" of them @theul.bsky.social !!!
This now brings the total number of items in Cambridge Digital Library to OVER 160,000!
cudl.lib.cam.ac.uk/collections/...

And only in Rome itself, is that right?

The brilliant Prof. Alex Woolf @standrewshist.bsky.social is back on the podcast to tell us what the Scandinavian diaspora got up to in the Middle Ages & why 'The Vikings' is a problematic concept. @maynoothuniversity.ie @researchireland.ie @tiagoovsilva.bsky.social open.spotify.com/episode/3ljZ...

But Badenoch is *totally* wrong, as the idea that the poor deserved special care and attention was essentially a Christian idea, adopted by the state after Constantine’s conversion.

Up to a point… The ‘welfare system’ is much debated, as regards scope and purpose - there’s a lot of extrapolation from some tricky sources - and the grain dole was expressly *not* based on poverty but citizenship - senators were eligible!

For #FindsFriday a denier of Lothar II (855-869) from Cologne, found at Valkhof in Nijmegen. The mangled forms of the king's name (which is written backwards) and the mint-name led to these coins long being unidentified. 📷 Collection Valkhof Museum

The dispersal of domestic cats from North Africa to Europe around 2000 years ago www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Organized Charity in the Ancient World: Pagan, Jewish, Christian In the early sixties of the 4th century CE, the Emperor Julian wrote in a letter to Arsacius, one of his pagan high priests in Asia Minor, that considerable amounts of corn and wine should be distribu...

well, I don't think I'd call it a welfare system. "Organized charity in the sense of institutionalized care for the poor was
unknown in Graeco-Roman antiquity": van der Horst www.academia.edu/129269982/Or...

BBC Radio 4 - Drama on 4, The New Real David Edgar’s sharp political drama explores the faultlines threatening modern democracy.

Tomorrow at 3pm: David Edgar's brilliant play, the New Real, airs on Radio 4. It offers an origin story of far right populism set in Eastern Europe.

It was a joy and privelege to play a small part in this project by doing some translation.

www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m...

Issue 42.2 is upon us! As some of you have noted, our book reviews are already available. Alongside the contents page for our special issue on England and the external world, and our frankly fabulous cover. Check out our website, articles available on Project Muse soon.

parergon.org/index.php/pa...

The Common Good: Military Service as Community Organisation in the Carolingian World The Carolingian empire under Charlemagne (768–814) and Louis the Pious (814– 840) was a polity deeply shaped by war, or, more specifically, the organisation of warfare. Taking the – for its time – ...

Did you ever wonder how the Early Medieval state worked? (And what it was ...?) - Here is my take on it. doi.org/10.1080/0304...

Al-generated content has surpassed human-written articles Graph

Your universe is a photocopy of a photocopy of a…
on.ft.com/4ahkNKa

Will check

Small changes to ‘for you’ feed on X can rapidly increase political polarisation Study finds that a week of political content can bring about a shift in views that previously would have taken three years

www.theguardian.com/technology/2...

This is powerful.
An Autobiographical Essay by Caroline Walker Bynum.
'That very summer, with unpacked boxes all around me, I wrote the article that became the title essay of Jesus as Mother and I filed papers to adopt a child as a single parent.'
www.ias.edu/sites/defaul...

France to introduce voluntary military service amid threat from Russia Macron says plan to introduce 10 months’ service among 18- and 19-year-olds will help France respond to ‘accelerating threats’

I wonder if the UK will eventually follow suit. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/n...

Thanks! Yes, I am perennially impressed too!