@ProfShakespeare

My photo shows the ‘Mold Cape’ on an upright metal stand inside a British Museum display case. It is a Bronze Age object made of thin hammered gold. The sheet gold is curved and looks like a stiff, rounded poncho. The surface is densely decorated with rows of repeating patterns made of circular bosses and lozenges, which run horizontally around the cape. These are thought to imitate strings of beads. The gold is a deep, warm colour which shines in the display lighting. Cracks and repaired sections are visible. The Mold Cape would be worn over the chest and shoulders. Arm movement would be restricted due to the rigidity of the gold. This amazing artefact was discovered in 1833 by workmen digging for stone in a burial mound at Bryn yr Ellyllon, (Hill of the Goblins) near Mold in Flintshire.

From Bronze Age Wales, the spectacular Mold Cape! 🤩

An incredible ancient feat of sheet-goldworking, beaten from a single gold ingot some 3,600 years ago!

The extraordinary embossed decoration is said to mimic strings of beads.

📷 by me

#FindsFriday
#Archaeology

A word cloud of Old English words; the largest word is neorxnawang, and the other words are ān-genga, hrīmig, giccig, eorþ-nafela, wīd-gangol, mixen-duncge, eorcnan-stān, steor-wigle, mere-swīn, lār-þegn, gnorn-scyndende, ears-endu, lācniendlic, lǣce-getawu, clypnys, glædnes, twelf, milte-wærc, friþu, lufu, bēag-gyfa, ge-cūþlǣcan, heofon-hwealf, wæl-cēasiga, sund-hwæt, bed, hlīsa, fēðe-mund, collen-ferhþ, tungol, and hran-rād.

Ic ēow þancung, everyone who shared their favourite Old English word(s) for Old English Wordhord’s 12th birthday. May your hoards of words grow ever more wondrous. For my personal favourites, see the "hord highlights" category on oldenglishwordhord.com or on the Old English Wordhord App.

Friday night dancing
#Fridaynight
BL Royal MS 20 A XVII, f. 9r

Medieval manuscript illustration of a golden horned owl.

niht-ēage, adj: able to see at night (lit. ‘night-eye’). (NI’HT-AY-ah-yuh / ˈnɪxt-ˌeːa-jə)
Image: Aberdeen Bestiary; England, c. 1200; @aberdeenunilib.bsky.social MS 24, f. 50r.
#OldEnglish #WOTD

A large limestone sarcophagus in a museum gallery

The heaviest object on display in The Queen's Diamond Jubilee Galleries is this limestone sarcophagus, which was dug up on the Abbey's north green in 1869. It was used for two burials - a Roman one in about AD 300-400, and a Saxon one in about AD 900-1000.

#Museum30 #Heavy

Title page from Daniel Featley's 'The Dippers dipt', printed in 1645

So many heretics out there, but thankfully you can spot them by their pointy ears!

The Iron Age ‘Battersea Shield’ which was found in the River Thames at Battersea in 1857. Dating to around 350-50 BC, the shield is now part of the collections at the British Museum. 📸 My own. #FindsFriday #BatterseaShield #IronAge

Alan Rickman’s personal scripts and mementoes up for auction Lots include the annotated shooting script for Die Hard and a hand-drawn Halloween card from his Harry Potter co-star Rupert Grint

At auction: scripts and papers from Alan Rickman’s archive: www.theguardian.com/film/2025/no...

16th Century list of accounts

Not strictly a legal record, this Star Chamber diet book nevertheless informs us how the Privy Council sitting judicially in the Star Chamber ran the court. Or, at least, tells us the vast amount they ate and drank on a particular day [TNA E 407/55]

Justice and the Rule of Law

BL Royal MS 6 E IX; Convenevole da Prato, Carmina regia; c.1335 CE; Italy (Tuscany); f.21r

For the feast day of Saint Martin a German stained glass roundel from the 1490s, showing rich Martin dividing his cloak w/ a beggar.

A white lamb resting on its mother in a green field, its two siblings also resting beside her

Let's be loafs with mama

Document ordering slip, c.1900-1910

Document ordering slip, c.1900-1910

I'm not saying the records I look at aren't consulted very often, but today, a PRO document ordering slip from the early 1900s dropped out of the volume I was looking at.

Astronomers on Mt Athos studying the stars with astrolabes and quadrants

BL Add 24189; Sir John Mandeville, Illustrations for Mandeville's Travels; Bohemia; 15th century; f.15r

Women in early modern courtrooms: 'A cross-section of society' In early modern England, courts of law were working overtime. University lecturer Lotte Fikkers delved into the records of centuries-old court cases involving women. In Early Modern Women's Life-Writi...

So proud of my @leidenhumanities.bsky.social colleague Lotte Fikkers, whose Open Access Book, Early Modern Women’s Life Writing & English law is out w/ @edinburghup.bsky.social ! A stunning achievement from our @erc.europa.eu project #FEATHERS. Don’t miss it
www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2025...

11th November is the feast of St Martin who is here depicted sharing his cloak with a beggar.

BL Stowe MS 17; 'The Maastricht Hours'; 14th century; f.98r

On this day in 1918 the parents of the poet Wilfred Owen were just listening to the church bells ringing to announce the Armistice when a telegram boy arrived with the message that their son had died.

A person reaches for an item from a shelf of books.

We’re launching our new catalogue on Monday 8 December.

To keep our collections safe while we do this, access and ordering will be suspended for a week before launch and all requests for 8 December onwards must be made on the new system when it launches.

Find out more: bit.ly/CollectionSu...

"Hamnet" actress Jessie Buckley on how Shakespeare changed everything for her She's been called "the acting world's best-kept secret." But Oscar-nominee Jessie Buckley's latest role, playing the wife of William Shakespeare in "Hamnet," may change that.

“I felt like music was the only way to contain what was kind of wanting to come out, and then #Shakespeare's words and his worlds were so titanic that it just made me realize how powerful words could be”.

Jessie Buckley on the film of “Hamnet”:

www.cbsnews.com/news/hamnet-...

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

A small woolen red and green pouch, with three gold embroidered lions, attached to a medieval manuscript

This beautiful seal bag, embroidered with the Royal Arms of England, was made in 1280 to protect the wax seal attached to a charter from the reign of Edward I. It's a fine example of 'opus anglicanum' - highly-prized English embroideries with gold and silver thread.

#Museum30 #Stitch

Some of the books were provided by Robert Devereux, second Earl of Essex, who looted the library of the Bishop of the Algarve in 1596 during a raid of Faro: www.bhsportugal.org/uploads/foto...

Fragment of a yellowish-brown clay figurine depicting a cat playing a harp. The cat is upright, with detailed facial features and textured fur, holding the harp to its side. The surface shows signs of wear and age, and the piece is displayed on a clear stand.

It's time for #Caturday and a timeline cleanse!

A terracotta figurine of a #cat playing the harp.

From #Egypt, #Roman period, late 1st century AD.

On display at Museum August Kestner, Hannover.

Have a lovely #weekend!

📷 me

🏺

Manuscript page showing a detailed illumination from Cotton MS Nero DIV

Could you co-supervise a PhD working with unexplored areas of our collection?

We’re seeking proposals from academics at HEI’s on four specially selected research themes: bit.ly/BritishLibra...

The cross has a circular centre, with arms which end in a curve. Made by a highly skilled jeweller, with garnets (probably from Asia) & gold foil backing. It demonstrates the Christian faith of the woman & medieval craftsmanship & trade networks.

“The Trumpington Cross”
Trumpington bed burial c 650 -710 AD

The burial of a female teenager.

1 of only 5 crosses of this type found in Britain. Excavated in 2011.

Now Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology #Cambridge

#FindsFriday
#medieval #archaeology

Henry Percy

Weirdly, today I’m revising my chapter in my forthcoming @headlinepg and @wwnorton book “The Essex Sisters” on Dorothy Devereux Percy’s crusade to prove her husband Henry’s “innocency” in the Gunpowder Plot. Henry died on the 27th anniversary of the Plot. What timing!

The Gunpowder Plot and Shakespeare's Macbeth | Blogs & features We touch on some of the connections associated between The Scottish Play and the failed attempt to assassinate King James I.

“Faith, here's an equivocator that could swear in both the scales against either scale, who committed treason enough for God's sake, yet could not equivocate to heaven” (Macbeth).

#Shakespeare and the Gunpowder Plot:
#BonfireNight

www.shakespearesglobe.com/discover/blo...

I'm procrastinating on Bluesky rather than writing up this research, plus I hate writing, so the IHR website really is the only place to hear about this for the time being. If anyone sees me in person this week, tell me I should be writing.

This little manuscript contains a treatise on cosmography that describes and illustrates the Ptolemaic model of a spherical earth at the center of the concentric spheres of the universe, and includes diagrams of eclipses and an astrolabe (UPenn LJS 26) #medievalsky

🔗: https://bit.ly/41EAKFa

We are advertising for an Assistant Director to join us in Marsh's Library. Full details about this exciting post here: marshlibrary.ie/vacancy-for-...