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John Jenkins

@armentarius.bsky.social

86 followers 110 following 34 posts

Medieval historian working on cathedrals, pilgrimage, Thomas Becket, Yorkshire etc. Director, Centre for Pilgrimage Studies, University of York

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John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Mar 13

It's Thomas Becket (or Beket), not Thomas a Becket olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/9...

Who Put the ‘a’ in ‘Thomas a Becket’? The History of a Name from the Angevins to the 18th Century

This article examines the history of Becket’s name from his birth to c. 1800, through detailed corpus analysis, with a particular focus on the varying popularity of the ‘Becket’ and ‘a Becket’ forms f...

olh.openlibhums.org

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · 23h

My punchy little book about pilgrimage in medieval Western Christendom has a cover, should be out soon. I've tried to make it accessible and thought-provoking, reviews would be appreciated once it comes out.

This book is a fresh, approachable, look at medieval pilgrimage in the Christian West, the first of its kind in over twenty years and the first to take account of prevailing trends in anthropological studies of pilgrimage. Previous works have described pilgrimage as it happened in the medieval period, but this also offers a framework for understanding the concept of pilgrimage. The first two chapters challenge the reader to question the definition of pilgrimage itself and provide a critical overview of the key historical and anthropological literature. A third chapter presents readers with a short history of medieval pilgrimage, fleshing out the core argument that pilgrimage was both contested and dynamic, and firmly rooted in its local and regional contexts. The final chapter explores the vexed question of reconstructing the medieval pilgrim experience, emphasizing the messiness and unpredictability of pilgrim behaviour.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 20

This looks fascinating., although York's institutional access to EME is firewalled to pre-2024, so I'll have to pick it up next St Alban's Day!

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 19

On the one hand, the nuanced and usually evidence-led arguments of academics, on the other hand, lunatics dog-whistling at the moon. We must have an open mind, lest wokeness reign, or something.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 19

Of course! journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 19

Gotta keep owning them libs

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 19

As such, the framing is at least honest, I suppose.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 19

I'm also more towards the latter, but I personally know a few people deep in the 'Free Spech' grift and from my knowledge of them and their overall agendas I do not believe a lot of this is in particularly good 'free speech' faith. The shock and offence is, ultimately, the goal for many of them.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 19

The latest good research on TWs is that they achieve nothing either positive or negative, so are just a waste of everyone's time. But this OfS guidance doesn't say anything about them.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Jun 19

So much of this is just cover for the culture war grift roadshow though, of which provocative shock and offence is the entire point. Lozza, Calvin Robinson, Carl Benjamin et al coming soon to a campus near you!

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 22

Fair enough

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 22

It's decent golden-era hip-hop which uses the fricative nature of Irish to great percussive effect. But then surely the entire history of rap is middle-aged white people complaining that it's not real music.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 20

I've seen a few speakers get interrupted but it was of the 'decades-old simmering feud between two men over the cause of the Black Death' type.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 9

But that does suggest to me that it's a note that the bishop was vested for Lent in the traditional manner

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 9

If it's Lincoln dioc as well then Bishop Longland was particularly conservative and may be making a point about 'correct' vestiture in the new Church of England

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 9

I predict the new pope Leo XIV will follow in the footsteps of Leo XIII and publicly declare his love for Bovril

c.1900 advert for Bovril featuring Pope Leo XIII with the text 'The Two Infallible Powers. The Pope and Bovril'

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 9

Is the date during Lent or Advent by any chance?

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 9

I've not seen it before, and purpuramentum is hardly a common word. DML gives 'elaborate adornment', but perhaps it might be being used here more etymologically to mean 'in purple vestment' (and it appears Lewis & Short has 'purple vestment' for purpuramenta)?

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · May 3

I wonder if this somehow derives from an article I co-wrote on Westminster Cathedral arguing that in the 1900s it was intended as a very 'English' national chuch at a time when the Catholics seriously believed they might convert the country. TLDR: it didn't work. www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Apr 24

How exciting!

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Apr 24

I'd absolutely love to do Devon vol. II like Nicholas Orme did for Cornwall, but has the VCH moved away slightly from that sort of planned layout of a whole book on pre-Ref religious houses?

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Apr 17

I just asked my actuary other half if she would be interested in listening to this and she said "I guess, it is sort of my job I suppose, yeah why not?" From her that counts as a ringing endorsement.

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Mar 25

This lovely book plopped through my door, with a chapter by me and the brilliant @ebenbow.bsky.social on so-called 'pilgrim souvenirs', medieval staff toppers, mould-making, trade in trinkets, and why we should embrace ambiguity in studying these objects.

The front cover of the book Images of Thomas Becket in the Middle Ages and Beyond, edited by Alyce Jordan and Kay Slocum

The first page of the chapter 'Becket on a Peacock: The Manufacture of Devotional Toys and their Use in Civic Devotions' by John Jenkins and Eliot Benbow, from the Images of Thomas Becket book

A page from the 'Becket on a Peacock' chapter showing a hollow-cast figurine of a peacock with St Thomas Becket on its back, made of lead between 1250 and 1350, found on Upper Thames Street, London and currently in the British Museum collections

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Mar 13

It's Thomas Becket (or Beket), not Thomas a Becket olh.openlibhums.org/article/id/9...

Who Put the ‘a’ in ‘Thomas a Becket’? The History of a Name from the Angevins to the 18th Century

This article examines the history of Becket’s name from his birth to c. 1800, through detailed corpus analysis, with a particular focus on the varying popularity of the ‘Becket’ and ‘a Becket’ forms f...

olh.openlibhums.org

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Mar 7

The architectural historian John Harvey is a particularly influential and pernicious example of Fascist ideas of history being mainstreamed even now

John Jenkins @armentarius.bsky.social · Feb 28

My talk on medieval pilgrimage in Yorkshire for the Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust is on Youtube www.youtube.com/watch?v=7lmN...

Medieval Pilgrimages in Yorkshire - John Jenkins

YouTube video by Yorkshire Historic Churches Trust

www.youtube.com