Catrin Haberfield

Thread about an almost-literal Cassandra of our present decline, who had already seen it all, 30 years ago…

History's Heroes - History's Toughest Heroes - Margery Kempe: Ministry of Tears - BBC Sounds A medieval woman finds superhuman strength in her tears.

The fabulous @laurakalas.bsky.social talking about toughness and Margery Kempe with Ray Winstone on Radio 4. Absolutely wonderful. www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/...

We are now accepting submissions for Vagantes 2026, hosted by The University of Rochester, April 9-11!

See the CFP below, and feel free to share with graduate students and colleagues who might be interested.

Abstracts are due 12 December 2025.

Job Opportunity at the University of Kent: Postdoctoral Research Associate Are you passionate about early medieval Britain?  Do you have advanced knowledge of Medieval Latin and interested in the analysis of Latin letter-writing?  If yes, then you may be interested in this f...

Interested in letter-writing in early medieval Britain? A three-year postdoc on @francescatinti.bsky.social’s and my project is now available. Apps close on 17th Oct. Let me know if you have any questions and please circulate! 🙂 jobs.kent.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx...

Screenshot of a slide showing the first paragraph of the intro to Jarvis's book, The Gutenberg Parenthesis. The main text itself reads: "utenberg's era-print's era, the era of the book for the last 550 years—was a grand exception in the course of history. That is what Tom Pettitt, Lars Ole Sauerberg, and Marianne Borch, professors at the University of Southern Denmark, assert in the theory they name the Gutenberg Parenthesis. It goes like this: On the other side of the Parenthesis, before printing, stories and intormation wera passed along mouth-to-mouth by tamily, triend, traveler, town crier, and balladeer. News, rumor, verse, and song would evolve along the way. Knowledge and memory were collective, collaborative, and often performative using rhyme and lyric. There was little sense of authorship or ownership of information or tale. The business of books was expensive but simple: one manuscript, one scribe, one patron, and much time. The scribes' higher mission was to preserve the knowledge of the ancients." My annotations are as follows: Ballads’ heyday was after the introduction of print. See Fumerton, Broadside Ballad (2021) Commercial manuscript production in Europe was capable of copying many books out at speed beginning in the 13th century. One technique that facilitated speed was the pecia system. The Middle Ages had a robust theory of authorship, & while different from other eras’, it was very well developed and extensively discussed. See Minnis, Medieval Theory of Authorship (1984) Short stories that circulated in manuscript throughout the Middle Ages include “The Man Who Could Make Vaginas Talk” and another one about using the spokes of a wheel to divide up a fart evenly.

Found it!

This is phenomenal 😂

NEW from the Corpus of Early Medieval Latin Medicine... our handlist of the 198(!!!) pre-1000 manuscripts with medical texts not included in the standard catalogues.

It's been a productive first phase for the project... but a lot of work still to do!

#medievalsky

I'm constantly thinking about the fact that despite all the focus on 'impact', they don't seem to count the context in which we have the most impact of all: teaching students, and especially those from a wide range of backgrounds

Devastated that the Centre for Lifelong Learning @york.ac.uk is being closed after 40 years. What a loss to education in the region. Feel for students and staff. Being a tutor has been joy, doing what universities should be doing by sharing knowledge widely with our communities.

Craftsmen at work building St Alban's church, TCD MS177 f60r, by Matthew Paris (1200-1259)

Today is the feast of Saint Alban, Britain's protomartyr, who is dear to me for many reasons. I grew up on Mount Saint Alban (DC), and in the 1980s I dug with the Biddles at St. Albans (Herts), where I learned to tell rusted Roman hobnails from the earth that turned red with the martyr's blood. 🕯️🧵

The Simple Truth About These Miserable Heat Waves Much of the country is facing brutal, potentially deadly heat. The reasons for such extreme events are not complicated.

please don't tell me kids need to learn how to use AI "for their future"

Rep. Melissa Hortman, killed in targeted attack, was a champion for Minnesotan families Hortman worked closely with Gov. Tim Walz to enact policies that prioritized children and expanded protections for abortion and gender-affirming care

When Tim Walz became Kamala Harris's running mate, progressives highlighted policies passed. It could not have been possible without Melissa Hortman.
-Free school breakfast and lunch
-Restoring voting rights for felons
-Paid leave
Great piece by @gracepanetta.bsky.social
19thnews.org/2025/06/rep-...

Hidden optical secrets of the Parthenon revealed by Oxford archaeologist Oxford archaeologist Juan de Lara used 3D tech to reveal how light dramatically illuminated Athena’s statue in the ancient Parthenon.

'Hidden optical secrets of the Parthenon revealed by Oxford archaeologist'

#ClassicsBluesky 🏺

archaeologymag.com/2025/05/hidd...

Thomas Aquinas has entered the chat and wishes to remind you that even if you are smarter and better educated, that yiayia might nonetheless know God a lot better than you do, though

idk why but this somehow feels like bingo

More meta text: the scribe emerges in the margin from the line-filler to write the text.

Bodleian Library MS. Douce 6; Psalter; c.1320 CE-1330 CE; Flanders (Ghent) f.61r @bodleianlibraries.bsky.social

I’m one of those dodgy immigrants who came here on a spouse visa and got indefinite leave to remain after 12 months.

The incalculable harm I have done to the UK includes dedicating my life to public service, educating thousands of British young people, and paying more tax than I’ll ever get back.

Asked if anyone in Downing Street was aware of the similarity between Starmer’s phrase and Powell’s, the spokesperson avoided the question and just said he rejected “the premise of any comparison”. When it was put to him that the two phrases were very, very similar, the spokesperson replied: “I can reject the comparison.”

You can't really do this though, can you. You can say that there was no intention to echo Powell, but you can't say that comparing the Powell speech with Starmer's speech is itself inherently wrong.

A photo of the printing event in Mainz (from April 26-27th, 2025) showing a moment of the printing process: two men are lifting the paper from the woodblock. Copyrights from Markus Kohz.

A photo of the printing event in Mainz (from April 26-27th, 2025) showing the giant woodblick, and the giant printed paper open air. Copyrights from Markus Kohz.

Just in case if you missed this printing event in #Mainz: they publically printed a giant page of the Gutenberg bible in the format 5 x 7,20 meter. #bookhistory #skystorians

I could point out what’s theologically wrong with this, but actually I’m most struck by how this managed to be both tasteless and yet somehow very touching, which takes a writer of rare skill.

Call for Proposals: AHR Special Issue: Methods for Archival Silence in Early History

Call for Proposals
AHR Special Issue: Methods for Archival Silence in Early History
Due September 16, 2025
The American Historical Review seeks proposals for a
www.themedievalacademyblog.org/call-for-pro...

PhD Timeline xkcd.com/3081

99.4% of new drugs approved by the FDA are the product of NIH funded research.
Remember this every time you see another headline on the NIH funding cuts.
It will directly impact YOU.
#ScienceNOTSilence

ChatGPT firm reveals human leader that is easily entertained.

So if it wasn’t abundantly clear - I am a massive dorkus. Behold, my first big cosplay of 2025 (or ever, really!) This has been hands down one of my favorite personal projects EVER - the cosplay took... TikTok video by Jax

Frozen.
In the Original Klingon.

www.tiktok.com/t/ZP82k5HHa/

Johns Hopkins Plans Staff Layoffs After $800 Million Grant Cuts Local and international health research efforts are already winding down as the university braces for even more potential cuts.

attacking higher education is economic sabotage

the largest employer in 10 states + 60 of the 100 top cities

“The local impact would reach far and wide: In 2022, Johns Hopkins affiliates accounted for over 93,600 jobs+over $15 billion in economic output in Maryland.”

www.wsj.com/health/healt...

We can add to this being asked to do things that result in the reply 'I would love to do this, but please understand that I have to reapply for my own job before the end of this month so may not be able to fulfil this obligation in the next academic year'.

I can't pretend I'm ok with this anymore.

Got a bit too close to the candle in their zest to read.

(Book of hours 13 from U. Iowa.)