@jembenham.bsky.social
Historian of espionage, diplomacy and international law in the medieval period. Originally from the snowy north. Professor at Cardiff University. www.jembenham.wordpress.com
Reposted
One thing with librarians is that they’re acutely aware of *who uses libraries* - many of us might go though our whole adult lives without setting foot in a library, but for people who are a little lost and need somewhere to be, they’re a lifeline.
Sometimes I think it’s going to be the librarians who will save us all.
November 26, 2025 at 7:38 AM
One thing with librarians is that they’re acutely aware of *who uses libraries* - many of us might go though our whole adult lives without setting foot in a library, but for people who are a little lost and need somewhere to be, they’re a lifeline.
Reposted
Some encouraging noises here for HE in Wales, but also a lot of meaningless waffle about collaboration and the primacy of the economy.
This isn't about minor tweaks. It's a matter of HE's survival or extinction in Wales.
This isn't about minor tweaks. It's a matter of HE's survival or extinction in Wales.
NEW on Wonkhe: Ahead of an evidence paper and call for submissions, Minister for Further and Higher Education Vikki Howells sets out her understanding of the key challenges faced by higher education in Wales buff.ly/gbquzUM
November 26, 2025 at 7:32 AM
Some encouraging noises here for HE in Wales, but also a lot of meaningless waffle about collaboration and the primacy of the economy.
This isn't about minor tweaks. It's a matter of HE's survival or extinction in Wales.
This isn't about minor tweaks. It's a matter of HE's survival or extinction in Wales.
Reposted
Writing doesn't just help you process your thoughts.
Neuroscientists have found it physically changes your brain in ways that build resilience and help you handle everyday stress and challenges.
buff.ly/8PdXnTT
Neuroscientists have found it physically changes your brain in ways that build resilience and help you handle everyday stress and challenges.
buff.ly/8PdXnTT
Writing builds resilience by changing your brain, helping you face everyday challenges
Resilience is often presented as feats of bravery and endurance. But everyday practices like journaling, drafting a text or even writing a to-do list are manifestations of a capacity to adapt.
theconversation.com
November 25, 2025 at 12:02 AM
Writing doesn't just help you process your thoughts.
Neuroscientists have found it physically changes your brain in ways that build resilience and help you handle everyday stress and challenges.
buff.ly/8PdXnTT
Neuroscientists have found it physically changes your brain in ways that build resilience and help you handle everyday stress and challenges.
buff.ly/8PdXnTT
Have happily been deleting irrelevant emails but what do you know, the day after an email pops into your inbox making several relevant 😬🤨
November 24, 2025 at 8:37 AM
Have happily been deleting irrelevant emails but what do you know, the day after an email pops into your inbox making several relevant 😬🤨
Reposted
Some high school students attended my “Living standards before the Black Death” lecture at @viuniversity.bsky.social yesterday. The lecture included a bit about coins, so I had an opportunity to show off some medieval silver pennies, including this one from King John’s reign (1199–1216).
November 19, 2025 at 2:28 PM
Some high school students attended my “Living standards before the Black Death” lecture at @viuniversity.bsky.social yesterday. The lecture included a bit about coins, so I had an opportunity to show off some medieval silver pennies, including this one from King John’s reign (1199–1216).
Medieval bling! Fully recommend 😍
Why hadn't I read this glorious paper earlier?!
'Merelsweinn the Sheriff, Tovi the Proud, the Godwinesons... men who served as royal councillors, oversaw the executions of criminals, bullied peasants, & fought & died at Hastings – hard, tough, serious individuals, dressed like peacocks...'
'Merelsweinn the Sheriff, Tovi the Proud, the Godwinesons... men who served as royal councillors, oversaw the executions of criminals, bullied peasants, & fought & died at Hastings – hard, tough, serious individuals, dressed like peacocks...'
November 20, 2025 at 9:13 PM
Medieval bling! Fully recommend 😍
Reposted
If you are interested in hearing about the results of our ERC project on Viking-Age silver, I will be giving at talk at @heasvienna.bsky.social on Monday 12.30 CET - details in link
www.heas.at/events/heas-...
www.heas.at/events/heas-...
HEAS Seminar Series - Archaeological Science - HEAS
As part of the HEAS Seminar Series in Archaeological Science, Jane Kershaw from the University of Oxford will give a talk on How lead isotope analysis of silver sheds new light on the origins of the V...
www.heas.at
November 19, 2025 at 12:32 PM
If you are interested in hearing about the results of our ERC project on Viking-Age silver, I will be giving at talk at @heasvienna.bsky.social on Monday 12.30 CET - details in link
www.heas.at/events/heas-...
www.heas.at/events/heas-...
Reposted
Justice for the victims. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Steve Bannon advised Jeffrey Epstein for years on how to rehab his reputation, texts show
Pair devised responses to public outrage about Epstein’s criminal history, his treatment by the justice system, and his friendships with powerful people
www.theguardian.com
November 15, 2025 at 11:54 AM
Justice for the victims. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
Reposted
I serendipitously stumble upon a new article on Carolingian border controls, by Marco Franzoni.
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
Mobility, Trade and Control at the Frontier Zones of the Carolingian Empire ( 8th–9th Centuries AD ) *
This contribution highlights the measures taken by the Franks in the eighth and ninth centuries to control the movement of goods and people on the peripheries of the empire. It focuses on the northeas...
www.degruyterbrill.com
November 13, 2025 at 6:15 PM
I serendipitously stumble upon a new article on Carolingian border controls, by Marco Franzoni.
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
This is so super interesting, I cannot wait to read this 😍
New #OnHistory blog, IHR Fellow Chris Lewis writes about new publication, "Making Domesday: Intelligent Power in Conquered England" by Stephen Baxter, Julia Crick, and C. P. Lewis, and Domesday scholarship in the IHR.
blog.history.ac.uk/2025/10/dome...
blog.history.ac.uk/2025/10/dome...
Domesday at the IHR - On History
IHR Fellow, Chris Lewis, writes about new publication, 'Making Domesday'.
blog.history.ac.uk
November 11, 2025 at 1:38 PM
This is so super interesting, I cannot wait to read this 😍
Medievalists will be forever young...
'people who are multilingual are half as likely to show signs of accelerated biological ageing than are those who speak just one language.'
Good thing that schools, universities and governments are so actively promoting modern languages then, isn't it? 1/2
Good thing that schools, universities and governments are so actively promoting modern languages then, isn't it? 1/2
Want a younger brain? Learn another language
A vast study suggests that being multilingual can slow down cognitive ageing.
www.nature.com
November 11, 2025 at 11:48 AM
Medievalists will be forever young...
Reposted
This is an excellent🧵—and a sign of how threadbare & impoverished UK non-stem discourse is that,again and again, such cases need to be mounted in these terms in an affluent & supposedly mature polity.
What's lost when we lose staff, departments, programmes and faculties in Arts, Humanities and Social Sciences, and what's that got to do with organ donation?
Amid the looming losses faced by Cardiff, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Leicester and Nottingham (among many others), here's a worked example. 1/8
Amid the looming losses faced by Cardiff, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Leicester and Nottingham (among many others), here's a worked example. 1/8
The organ donation ‘opt-out’ has been a fatal failure | The Observer
observer.co.uk
November 10, 2025 at 8:44 PM
This is an excellent🧵—and a sign of how threadbare & impoverished UK non-stem discourse is that,again and again, such cases need to be mounted in these terms in an affluent & supposedly mature polity.
Reposted
Since it’s University Press Week #UPweek, a shout out to my amazing colleagues at University of London Press @uolpress.bsky.social. They are flying the flag for open humanities publishing.
November 10, 2025 at 9:01 PM
Since it’s University Press Week #UPweek, a shout out to my amazing colleagues at University of London Press @uolpress.bsky.social. They are flying the flag for open humanities publishing.
OK have just arrived home in Sweden (via quick visit in Netherlands) and Graham Potter turns up in TV news. He's the new Sweden manager (⚽️) and his Swedish is actually pretty good. Top marks!
November 5, 2025 at 5:33 PM
OK have just arrived home in Sweden (via quick visit in Netherlands) and Graham Potter turns up in TV news. He's the new Sweden manager (⚽️) and his Swedish is actually pretty good. Top marks!
Reposted
What's that? You want another Tang Dynasty camel? Here you are, then.
November 4, 2025 at 5:00 PM
What's that? You want another Tang Dynasty camel? Here you are, then.
Reposted
In case you, like me, missed @magistraetmater.bsky.social's recent post on the unmemorable queen.
magistraetmater.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/t...
magistraetmater.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/t...
The unmemorable queen
There’s been much recent scholarly interest in queenship, and this inevitably leads to the recurring historical question: what changed in medieval queenship and when? To answer this. it’s often use…
magistraetmater.wordpress.com
November 4, 2025 at 11:56 AM
In case you, like me, missed @magistraetmater.bsky.social's recent post on the unmemorable queen.
magistraetmater.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/t...
magistraetmater.wordpress.com/2025/08/12/t...
My OH seems to be having much more fun with his creations than I am with mine at the moment 😍
November 4, 2025 at 4:35 PM
My OH seems to be having much more fun with his creations than I am with mine at the moment 😍
This morning I discover that there is a new university phrase for navel gazing: 'deep, discipline-centric contributions'. I think it complements well, and is not at all contradictory to, other recent university phrases, such as 'avoid silos' and 'global' in referring to disciplines...
November 4, 2025 at 10:17 AM
This morning I discover that there is a new university phrase for navel gazing: 'deep, discipline-centric contributions'. I think it complements well, and is not at all contradictory to, other recent university phrases, such as 'avoid silos' and 'global' in referring to disciplines...
Reposted
Delighted to add this article to my publications available to download:
Who ruled Frisia in the mid-ninth century? works.hcommons.org/records/n3a9...
Who ruled Frisia in the mid-ninth century? works.hcommons.org/records/n3a9...
Who ruled Frisia in the mid-ninth century?
An important article setting out the reasons for retaining the traditional view that Lothar I and II ruled the whole of Frisia between 840 and 869, from the Sincfal to the Weser, not just the western ...
works.hcommons.org
November 2, 2025 at 10:08 PM
Delighted to add this article to my publications available to download:
Who ruled Frisia in the mid-ninth century? works.hcommons.org/records/n3a9...
Who ruled Frisia in the mid-ninth century? works.hcommons.org/records/n3a9...
Reposted
This is very good on his murder itself.
Who really murdered Pier Paolo Pasolini?
One man’s unending mission to solve the mysterious and brutal killing of the Italian film director
on.ft.com
November 1, 2025 at 10:32 AM
This is very good on his murder itself.
Reposted
This week we also announced plans for a new Applied History Fellowship for postdoc historians, with @ihr.bsky.social and publisher DC Thomson bit.ly/4ofWArN
Fellowships will develop historical skills for use in workplaces beyond higher education. Launch event: 2.30pm, 19 Nov, online #Skystorians
Fellowships will develop historical skills for use in workplaces beyond higher education. Launch event: 2.30pm, 19 Nov, online #Skystorians
New programme of 'Applied History Fellowships': launch and introductory event - RHS
In 2025-26 the Institute of Historical Research (IHR), Royal Historical Society and DC Thomson will launch a new Applied History Fellowship partnership. Join us at this online session -- 2.30pm on Wed...
bit.ly
November 1, 2025 at 11:34 AM
This week we also announced plans for a new Applied History Fellowship for postdoc historians, with @ihr.bsky.social and publisher DC Thomson bit.ly/4ofWArN
Fellowships will develop historical skills for use in workplaces beyond higher education. Launch event: 2.30pm, 19 Nov, online #Skystorians
Fellowships will develop historical skills for use in workplaces beyond higher education. Launch event: 2.30pm, 19 Nov, online #Skystorians
Reposted
We're delighted to be returning to the Institute of Historical Research's History Day again this year!
Tuesday 4th November from 11:00 to 16:00. Rumour has it our stall has sweets...
#HistDay25
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
@ihr.bsky.social
Tuesday 4th November from 11:00 to 16:00. Rumour has it our stall has sweets...
#HistDay25
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
@ihr.bsky.social
October 28, 2025 at 7:45 AM
We're delighted to be returning to the Institute of Historical Research's History Day again this year!
Tuesday 4th November from 11:00 to 16:00. Rumour has it our stall has sweets...
#HistDay25
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
@ihr.bsky.social
Tuesday 4th November from 11:00 to 16:00. Rumour has it our stall has sweets...
#HistDay25
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...
@ihr.bsky.social
Reposted
New on History for Atheists: my long awaited and rather long critical review of Alice Roberts' new book *Domination*:
historyforatheists.com/2025/10/revi...
historyforatheists.com/2025/10/revi...
October 30, 2025 at 9:08 PM
New on History for Atheists: my long awaited and rather long critical review of Alice Roberts' new book *Domination*:
historyforatheists.com/2025/10/revi...
historyforatheists.com/2025/10/revi...
In years gone past those pitching an envoy or spy to me were paid in gold coins. Alas, the local mint is out of gold, so this year we'll pay in dinosaur coins instead. 🤣
October 31, 2025 at 9:38 AM
In years gone past those pitching an envoy or spy to me were paid in gold coins. Alas, the local mint is out of gold, so this year we'll pay in dinosaur coins instead. 🤣
My final-year students are gearing up for the 'pitch a spy' event next week. It promises to be epic 😃 Code names, little birds, spy masters, and scouts all feature.
October 24, 2025 at 2:52 PM
My final-year students are gearing up for the 'pitch a spy' event next week. It promises to be epic 😃 Code names, little birds, spy masters, and scouts all feature.