Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Karin Wulf @kawulf.bsky.social · 16h

Me: Come ON just two more emails. It'll take 10-15 minutes.

Brain: Absolutely not. But I'll happily give you an hour of transcribing these 18th century letters.

5 3 48

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 15h

Need cheering up on a gloomy October afternoon? The new issue of Early Medieval Europe is out!
Articles on justice in Bavaria, tolls in Italy, women in 10th-c. Rome, Carolingian kingship, and child slavery: mostly available Open Access 😎https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/14680254/2025/33/4

Early Medieval Europe: Vol 33, No 4

Early Medieval Europe is an interdisciplinary medieval studies journal covering European history from the fall of the Roman Empire up until the 11th century.

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

1 15 30

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Deborah Hayden @dhaydenceltic.bsky.social · 15h

The LEIGHEAS project Irish Medical Manuscript of the Month for October 2025 is Dublin, TCD MS 1323 (H.3.4), containing materia medica, texts on the medicinal virtues of feverfew and whiskey, marginal notes in ogham and this very cool letter ‘H’:

leigheas.maynoothuniversity.ie/leigheas-man...

1 11 32

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

V.H.T. @v-h-t.bsky.social · 18h

#medievalwarfare

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 21h

Being irritating is similar to being informative, right? I’m glad people are enjoying/reacting to our translation of the sources for the Battle of Tours, which you can find here: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2023/10/24/k...

#medievalsky

1 3

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Ranjith Kollannur @arby-k.bsky.social · 18h

In 740, a planned major invasion of Gaul from al-Andalus, possibly aimed at Marseille, only halted at Zaragoza when news arrived of the Great Berber Revolt

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 21h

Being irritating is similar to being informative, right? I’m glad people are enjoying/reacting to our translation of the sources for the Battle of Tours, which you can find here: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2023/10/24/k...

#medievalsky

1 1

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 21h

Being irritating is similar to being informative, right? I’m glad people are enjoying/reacting to our translation of the sources for the Battle of Tours, which you can find here: salutemmundo.wordpress.com/2023/10/24/k...

#medievalsky

2 9

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

ian.fenrisgames @fenrisgames.com · 2d

the important news

a man in a hat shaped like one half of a horse chestnut spiked casin alongside the headline: Lincolnshire man becomes King Conker after winning world championships.

7 4 66

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

jembenham.bsky.social @jembenham.bsky.social · 1d

Excellent to have this one in physical form finally. So many excellent contributions. THE place for those interested in treaties in MA and EM periods. (May also have a chapter by me...😇)

2 2 10

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

"Online Rent-a-Sage" Bret Devereaux @bretdevereaux.bsky.social · 1d

Maybe this is simply a difference in the expected 'rate' of knew knowledge, but this take puzzles me, because there's quite a bit of new data and studies needing to be done that I can see pretty easily in Roman history.

Knowledge creation steady and clearly visible.

A tweet by Theo Nash, which reads, "The problem is that (almost) no one, at least in the humanities, is able to produce ‘new knowledge’ at anything like the rate expected. So scholars grasp at faddish trends and voguish theories to publish books that seem exciting in the moment but have no enduring value."

22 65 480

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Chappell Ellison @chappelltracker.bsky.social · 12d

This Tumblr user summarizes something I've been feeling/doing lately. Against everything going on, it somehow feels helpful.

User homoquartz writes: as long as you smile and nod, people are satisfied. it’s just to show that you are nice and there with good intentions. we’re small in a big world and have to rely on other people to be decent to us. so we do our little human dance to each other to say, “i’m not here to hurt you. here’s something we have in common, like the weather or sports or itchy sweaters, so we both know we’re on the same team. we both agree on a basic fact, like that it is rainy or that being itchy is uncomfortable, and this proves we can get along. i’m being light-hearted and non-threatening right now."
Small talk isn't to get to know a person. It's just a greeting to affirm you're buddies in the universe. I am motivated by wanting the other person to know I am friendly, so I have gotten pretty decent at small tall when I used to hate it.

36 1.2K 3.4K

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Dr. Nick Posegay @nposegay.bsky.social · 2d

Fantastic practical joke for medieval scribes.
(from §22 of this book payhip.com/b/BoYj4 by @majnouna.com)

"To render the scribe unable to write from the inkwell: Squeeze the juice of a tamarind and transfer it to the inkwell. No scribe will manage to write from it."

8 23

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Colleen Curran @ccurran.bsky.social · 2d

Destroyed in Ashburnham house fire

Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 2d

Only available on microfilm

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 2d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/

1 1 16

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Dr Francis Young @drfrancisyoung.bsky.social · 2d

Only available on microfilm

Marjorie James Keenan @unenthusiast.com · 2d

In honour of spooky month, share a 4 word horror story that only someone in your profession would understand.

rm -rf ~/

hammancheez @hammancheez.bsky.social · 2d

"The chancellor approved it"

11 26 210

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 2d

Schloss Hohenzollern on the horizon

The towers of a romantic nineteenth-century castle are visible on a high hill in the distance

12

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Dr. Jeroen W.P. Wijnendaele @drdragases.bsky.social · 2d

This is all kinds of wonderful.

1 9 40

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Medieval Military Medicine @medmilmedicine.bsky.social · 3d

Sunday morning - Doodle in the margins of this 12th century manuscript, Cambridge, Sidney Sussex College - 101, fol. 97v

58 220

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Prof Katherine Schofield 🇬🇧🇦🇺🇪🇺 @katherineschof8.bsky.social · 3d

A perennial favourite.

I reckon the bookshop was Galloway & Porter on Sidney Street in Cambridge. Showing my age there.

Poem by Clive James, published in te FT Weekend Magazine:

The book of my enemy has been remaindered
And I am pleased.
In vast quantities it has been remaindered.
Like a van-load of counterfeit that had been seized
And sits in piles in a police warehouse,
My enemy’s much-prized effort sits in piles
In the kind of bookshop where remaindering occurs.

12 16 82

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 3d

St Patrick - tough on snakes but fond of elephants!

Nosferatu's John Thomas @karanthir.bsky.social · 3d

Very happy to have these arrive yesterday, especially to finally have a copy of @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social book!

1 7

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 3d

It’s never too early to introduce your children to Abu al-Abbas!

2

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

John Oxley @joxley.jmoxley.co.uk · 4d

Guy who's only read GK Chesterton: Getting a lot of GK Chesterton vibes from this.

Nicola @scrapegroat.bsky.social · 4d

YOU SHALL NOT PASS

1 1 24

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 4d

I‘m particularly fond of the two North African dirhams in the hoard which are nice for thinking about connections across the Mediterranean.

3

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Simon Coupland @scoupland.bsky.social · 4d

For #FindsFriday some of the lovely objects in the Ilanz hoard from Switzerland, buried during Charlemagne's reign, in the early 790s. Gold Lombard and Carolingian coins, silver Carolingian, Anglo-Saxon and Arabic coins, as well as gold jewellery. See more here: raetischesmuseum.app/extras/highl...

3 10 56

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

Simon Kuestenmacher @simongerman600.bsky.social · 4d

A bit of linguistic cartography to brighten your day. This map shows how the words for camel 🐫 spread across the Old World.

4 32 100

Reposted by Sam Ottewill-Soulsby

graemeyward.bsky.social @graemeyward.bsky.social · 4d

A delightfully niche award (clarkesworldmagazine.com/hall_02_25/)

1 1 7

Sam Ottewill-Soulsby @samottewillsoulsby.bsky.social · 4d

I’m glad we voted with our feet and left Academia(.)edu but it will make it much harder to work which institution an academic is currently at. Back to staring at profiles from multiple universities to try to judge which photo seems the most recent! (Feel free not to try to guess how old mine are.)

1 14