#OTD 1500 Charles b. to Philip, Duke of Burgundy & Juana, heir to the kingdoms of Castile & Aragon. When he succeeded his grandfather, Maximilian I, as Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, 1519, the combined inheritances made Charles ruler over the greatest expanse of European territory since Charlemagne.
24.02.2026 00:13 — 👍 4 🔁 1 💬 0 📌 0
23 Feb 1613: Arthur Chichester, planter, soldier, created Baron Chichester of #Belfast #otd (Belfast Harbour Commissioners)
23.02.2026 21:33 — 👍 10 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Donning my purple gloves to say happy birthday to our 1000-year-old astrolabe #histsci 📜
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home...
No other word has done more damage to the craft of writing in recent years than “content”. Even if you’re using the word “content” ironically, or as a cute little joke, don’t. When someone calls writing “content” they’re pissing on someone’s hard work & passion. “Content” is Technosatan’s henchword.
23.02.2026 09:21 — 👍 1184 🔁 388 💬 32 📌 48Oh yes. ‘Content’ is a banal word that somehow erases the immense cumulative labour of writing and research (and the training behind that) to focus solely on some sort of neat consumable output. Writing is both messier and more magical than ‘content creation’, perhaps the deadest phrase in existence
23.02.2026 13:36 — 👍 59 🔁 6 💬 5 📌 0
#SundaySermons It would be easy to head for home after seeing the glories of Wells' cathedral, but it was worth making the effort to find St Cuthbert's church.
The finely carved wooden pulpit of 1636 was reached via elegant stairs & holding up this edifice was a Stoic band of eagle base brackets.
23 Feb 1679: d. Anne Conway, Viscountess, #philosopher. Her body was then placed in a glass coffin #otd
23.02.2026 22:15 — 👍 9 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Apse mosaic in the church of Sant'Agnese fuori le Mura in #Rome (7th c.). Agnes is dressed in a jewel encrusted robe and a crown. She stands on a fire with a sword at her feet, symbols of her martyrdom. Pope Honorius and (possibly) Pope Gregory the Great stand next to her.
📸🇮🇹 flic.kr/p/Qc6pX2
Made some friends today…
National Museum of Scotland
@danherb10.bsky.social
@durotrigesdig.bsky.social
@theduncanmackay.bsky.social
@drtobydriver.bsky.social 🙂
Thousands of markings on objects made around 40,000 years ago may have been more than just doodles, a new analysis suggests
23.02.2026 20:27 — 👍 641 🔁 176 💬 17 📌 6
Victorian high gothic at its height. A C19 precursor to Everything, Everywhere all at Once. Name a decoration Mouse point at it. C15 masons turn in their graves #StGeorgeEastonInGordan #NorthSomerset #SundaySermons
22.02.2026 21:41 — 👍 181 🔁 17 💬 1 📌 0
Bundle of slightly damaged parchment pleadings
17th Century parchment pleadings
To be fair, I've seen worse. #ExtremeCataloguing
23.02.2026 19:28 — 👍 32 🔁 9 💬 1 📌 0
On 3 March, join our free lunchtime lecture to hear about the identification of wall paintings of two of the Nine Worthies at Eastgate House and learn about their use in a variety of media in the interiors of 16th and 17th century houses.
www.sal.org.uk/event/nine-w...
Help save the Leicestershire Torc!
“A stunning 3,200-year-old gold object dating to the Middle Bronze Age period and the only torc ever discovered in the county”.
leicestershirecollections.org.uk/behind-the-s...
#OTD 1547, 9-year-old Edward VI bit.ly/2sCS3bo crowned @westminsterabbey.bsky.social by Cranmer, Abp of Canterbury. The previous day Edward had processed through London, greeted by pageants and tableaux. He being so young, the ceremony was reduced from c. 12 to 7 hours. ©Oxburgh Hall.
20.02.2026 23:17 — 👍 5 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Surprising Medieval Inventions: Nine Things You Didn’t Expect from the Middle Ages www.medievalists.net/2025/02/surp... #inventions
20.02.2026 21:17 — 👍 13 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
My photo shows a chunky gold bracelet from a 2000 year-old princely grave in Zohor, Slovakia. It is a thick, solid band of gold shaped like a slightly open circle, with the two ends overlapping. Most of the bracelet is smooth and rounded, like a polished gold rod bent into a loop. Nearer the open ends, the surface is engraved with repeating circular motifs, arranged in neat rows running lengthwise along four sides of the bracelet. The rows of circles are separated by narrow decorative ‘rope-like’ borders which also run lengthwise along the band of the bracelet. Each end of the gold band (only one is seen in my photo) features an ornate, rounded knob that looks almost like a small sculpted head or helmet. It has circular patterns and curved ridges.
Chunky Roman-era gold bracelet from a Germanic princely tomb in Zohor, Slovakia. 1st century AD.
Slovak National Museum, Bratislava. 📷 by me
#FindsFriday
#Archaeology
We are advertising 4 jobs at York for historians (1 year medieval, 2 years modern Britain and public history, 3 years modern China, and open ended modern Middle Eastern) features.york.ac.uk/history-jobs/
20.02.2026 19:05 — 👍 92 🔁 114 💬 1 📌 5
After 24hrs frantic reading I can say with confidence that the last British royal to be arrested was….
William IV
As a young man he got in a drunken brawl in Gibraltar, he was locked up, revealed his identity & was released.
This & other parallels on the pod now:
podfollow.com/dan-snows-hi...
"Kiln you believe it? Medieval industry at Finchingfield"
cotswoldarchaeology.co.uk/finchingfield/
New blog post on a somewhat neglected aspect of fashion at court in the 1550s and 1560s: vanishedcomforts.org/2026/02/18/j...
20.02.2026 18:14 — 👍 8 🔁 3 💬 0 📌 0
Rackheath Church, Norfolk. In the care of The Norfolk Churches Trust. Open daily.
20.02.2026 19:10 — 👍 18 🔁 2 💬 0 📌 0
Here’s what I’m reading this weekend!
What are you reading?
Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufmann
Sack that used to hold affidavits.
Label on an affidavits sack
I still get a thrill when I open up an archive box and find the original sack that used to hold the records. This is an 18th Century sack used for holding King's Bench affidavits [TNA KB 1/3]
20.02.2026 20:31 — 👍 193 🔁 35 💬 6 📌 3
Just so you know, despite data to the contrary, I never assume people—friends or family even—read my books.
I’m always genuinely surprised to find when it happens.
Daffodils on a university campus with a stone building in the background
Spring has sprung lads
20.02.2026 16:30 — 👍 861 🔁 55 💬 27 📌 2
When training to be a cathedral guide we were told never to stand in front of the object that we were describing. Same goes for description labels! (St Cuthbert's, Wells, Somerset).
20.02.2026 17:15 — 👍 84 🔁 4 💬 0 📌 0
Loved this at Pompeii: either side of the fountainhead are indentations worn into the stone rim by the hands of people drawing water 2,000 years ago #Roman
20.02.2026 15:05 — 👍 914 🔁 116 💬 20 📌 7
#FontsOnFriday at the Church of the Holy Cross, Ashton Keynes, Wiltshire.
"Norman cylinder, ornamented all over" says Pevsner. I felt it a glorious affair, with layers of zig-zagging reaching down to lavish up-side-down palmettes. @thehistorymouse.bsky.social
