Anna Cusack

Photo of an English village, showing a lane with terraced white houses to the left of it and a parish church further along.

📢FIRST FEATURED WILL OF 2026📢

'if it shall please God to afflict me before my Death’.

Emily explores the will of Mary Young, who anticipated that she might lose mental or physical capacity at the end.

#EarlyModern 🗃️ @leverhulme.ac.uk @uoearchhist.bsky.social

sites.exeter.ac.uk/materialcult...

Preparing a class for tomorrow, and again enjoying the ballad of 'Shameless Joan of Finsbury', who for a bet crawled backwards across London on all fours, her skirt over her head, and a lighted candle in her backside: a watchman believed he had seen the devil. ebba.english.ucsb.edu/ballad/22345...

📣You now have until Friday 23 January to get your proposals in - we look forward to seeing many of you in Lancaster in July!✨

If you've been sitting on the fence about submitting a paper to SHS, guess what?! You have a whole week more to decide and I'd strongly encourage you to submit that paper! It is such a supportive, friendly and fun conference to be part of! Come and join us!

If you've been sitting on the fence about submitting a paper to SHS, guess what?! You have a whole week more to decide and I'd strongly encourage you to submit that paper! It is such a supportive, friendly and fun conference to be part of! Come and join us!

Copy of an information, on paper

The Court of King's Bench could hear the most serious of criminal cases. They also had to hear misdemeanours such as this one against John Carver, for "insulting the French Ambassador by knocking violently on his door" [Rex v Carver, East Geo II] TNA KB 33/11/6

Deadline extended until 23 Jan! Do put in an application for this conference - it's one of the warmest, loveliest and social (fittingly!) conferences there is in History, and it's especially welcoming to ECRs and PGRs!

Updated CfP: Communication and Exchange in the Early Modern 1500-1850 conference: ‘A Continent in Conversation’ @ Aberystwyth University, 11-12 June 2026.

Please do check out and share our #CfP. Deadline: 27 February 2026.

#Earlymodern #Communication #History

Meredith Gamer - City of the Gallows

Art and Execution in Eighteenth-Century London

À paraître en juin aux Yale UP

A very detailed embroidering depicting men and women undertaking various work tasks. These include spinning, harvesting wheat, picking fruit, sheering sheep, carrying water and so on. Each task is labelled with the name of the month. Credit: The Labours of the Months, The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

📢JOYCE YOUINGS MEMORIAL LECTURE📢

Prof. Jane Whittle: Work & gender, status & power: the surprising history of everyday chores in early modern England

🗓️ 28 January, 3pm
📍 Uni of Exeter & Zoom

All welcome at this public 🗃️ lecture, register for your place: www.eventbrite.com/e/the-joyce-...

3 days to submit those abstracts! Get them in! It's going to be a wonderful conference!

Soho at Noon: Satire, Stratification, and Urbanisation in William Hogarth’s London - On History Daisy Mansfield is volunteer with VCH London, focusing on artists in Soho. In this blog, she discusses what we can learn about Soho in the eighteenth-century from the work of the renowned artist and c...

This new blogpost from @ihr.bsky.social by Daisy Mansfield, a volunteer with our @vch-london.bsky.social project, currently working on the parish of St Anne #Soho looks at what we can learn abut the life of the area in the 18th century from the works of William Hogarth. 🗃️

Bookes are like Cheese, that is neuer well seasoned to euery mans tast; for one will say it is too salt, another wil say it is too fresh, a thirde will say it is to tart, another thinkes it to be too milde; one will haue it too hard, another too soft, another too tough, another too brittle, it neuer pleaseth euery mans tast; no more do Bookes.

Barnabe Rich explaining that "bookes are like cheese"

Image of webpage showing the book details for Machel's 'Collections'.

Amazing new publication of Thomas Machell's 17th century 'Collections Towards a History and Topography of Westmorland' edited by Jane Platt. A fantastic source for study made freely available online by Cumberland & Westmorland Antiquarian and Archaeological society. 🗃️ cumbriapast.com/cgi-bin/cumb...

Here's what it looked like on my return to work this morning - beautiful red brick gabled building of Girton's Hall, with a dusting of snow on the grass in front.

JOB ALERT!

3-year postdoc at @girtoncollege.bsky.social - research anything you like in History, Archaeology or Anthropology in a wonderful, welcoming scholarly community.

PLEASE SHARE! Closes 12 January

www.girton.cam.ac.uk/job-vacancie...

How did employers recruit their servants in the 18th century? In a previous article I looked at those who worked at Kenwood House, which led me on to take a look at how employees were recruited. Many servants acquired their position via word of mouth and were able to supply a good reference from a previous employer, although of course, at that time there was no legal requirement to provide one, but without such a reference it would have been virtually impossible to find employment. I have also looked at the typical wages of servants in a previous article which can be found…

How did employers recruit their servants in the 18th century?

In a previous article I looked at those who worked at Kenwood House, which led me on to take a look at how employees were recruited. Many servants acquired their position via word of mouth and were able to supply a good reference from a…

Crime and Punishment in Early Modern London and the Home Counties Crime and punishment in early modern London and the home counties is a rich area of study. Students will encounter not only the changes in the law across the period, but also the very real human stori...

I know it feels a long way off, but for those of you who think your August is missing a little early modern crime...why not sign up for the University of Oxford's summer school? I promise it will be more fun and less grim than you may think!
lifelong-learning.ox.ac.uk/courses/crim...

IHR London Summer School 2026: Sickness and Health From the Black Death to the Covid-19 pandemic, from medieval medicine to public health across the centuries, from hospitals to archives & collections. Join us to discover Londo...

The #London #SummerSchool 2026 is now booking on the theme of 'Sickness & Health'. From the Black Death to Covid-19. Use code HEALTH10 before 24th Jan to get 10% discount! Bursaries available www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Friendly Societies, by Joe Saunders. Prior to the development of government and employer health insurance and financial services, friendly or ‘benevolent’ societies were an important part of many people’s lives. how-to-history.com/2025/12/31/f...

A broadsheet called 'Merry Boys of Christmas, or, the Milke-Maids New Years-Gift. There is a woodcut of lots of people seated around a table drinking and smoking, and beneath verses of the song.

'These Holidays we'l briskly drink,
all mirth we will devise,
No Treason we will speak or think,
then bring us brave minc'd Pies:
Roast Beef and brave Plum-Porridge
our Loyal hearts to chear,
Then prithee make no more ado,
but bring us Christmas Beer.'

Did Oliver Cromwell Really Ban Christmas? Anna Cusack Oliver Cromwell cancelled Christmas – so goes the word on the street. Many people have heard this, friends, family, and strangers often tout it. ‘The Puritans were so strict even Christ…

We have a range of seasonal #History posts you can read to inform and entertain over the festive period, including:

Did Oliver Cromwell Really Ban Christmas? how-to-history.com/2025/11/26/d...

Hi yes this is correct. Goes hand in hand with some that state 'found dead in a field', 'found dead in a street'. The churchwardens record things a little differently parish to parish which is frustrating at times but yes is the simplest answer.

Huge congratulations Nikki, I hope you had the best time! 🎉

📜 Catch up on everything the @materialwills.bsky.social team have been up to with this latest project update 👇

#EarlyModern #DigitalHumanities #History #CitizenScience

@uoearchhist.bsky.social @uniofexeterhass.bsky.social
@leverhulme.ac.uk @transkribus.bsky.social
@zooniverse.bsky.social

Congratulations, Claire, wonderful news 🎉

A Significant Milestone The Social History Society was founded at Lancaster University in 1976 and held a conference that year on the theme of ‘Elites in Society’. The SHS was the brainchild of Harold Perkin (the first Professor of Social History in Britain), who quietly promoted a form of social history that looked beyond class based analyses. Alongside a regular newsletter, the society’s conference was the glue that bound together its increasingly diverse membership. As the SHS’s conferences grew, they moved from a focus on a single theme to a programme that incorporated different strands of social history. The SHS conference is now one of the largest gatherings of social historians in Britain, and incorporates work that spans time, space and various historical approaches. There are few conferences that are as diverse or as open to new ideas. From the outset, the SHS has sought to offer a constructive space for postgraduate historians to present and gain feedback on their work. The society still prides itself on giving postgraduates the same platform as more established colleagues. Thankfully, however, some things have changed. The first SHS conferences were held in the depths of winter (according to late founder member Eric Evans, this was because no other conference was foolhardy enough to organise events at that time of year so they could guarantee and audience). Since 2018, the conference has adopted a summer timetable, allowing outdoor events including walking tours and an unforgettable night at the Black Country Living Museum’s 1950s fairground. We are delighted to be returning to our roots at Lancaster to celebrate our 50th anniversary.

The @socialhistsoc.bsky.social conference will be at Lancaster in July. Call for papers just released. I'll put putting together a proposal, so hope to see some of you there! #EarlyModern 🗃️

Details here: socialhistory.org.uk/events/confe...

Submit a paper for SHS!!!
It's always such a great conference, there are strands for everyone, and it's the 50th anniversary which is even more of an excuse to join us and celebrate at Lancaster!

Three copies of the book Emotions and the Letter.

Book Launch: Emotions and the Letter #medieval #earlymodern www.anzamems.org/?p=...

Very excited to see my article on ghosts in early modern London published with Urban History! And it's open access! cambridge.org/core/journal...

Manuscript image showing part of a paragraph that reads: 'wheather Mr John Monson hayre to Sir Th shall live long & prosp[er] & attayne to honour & good & a happy mariage', then, added later in a darker ink (but not shown in the image): 'he shall'. (NOTE6839 in the online edition.)

1620: seeking predictions from an angel, Richard Napier asks whether one of his clients will 'live long & prosp[er]' #earlymodern 🖖