A heads up: the platform I've been using to host my searchable database of #medieval Premonstratensian sisters is ending its free hosting plan on short notice. Since I can't justify spending $100/month (!) on this, or find a viable alternative, it'll go away on Oct 1.

yvonneseale.org/atlas/sisters

One of my all-time favourite series of books!

It was always a "real thing," it just turns out to be a little bit older - and therefore more important - than originally thought. This article demonstrates how the word "copy" can be misinterpreted, especially in the context of medieval manuscript studies. 1/2

"The papal privilege issued in 1195 by Pope Celestine III is one of the few sources that allows for an insight into the history of St Mary’s, Clonard, and Agnes Ní Máelshechlainn’s tenacity in defending her monastery from expropriation during the English conquest of Ireland."

Oh my god, there is an extended scene in which we see and hear Cardinal and future Pope BRIAN BLESSED pooping in front of the other cardinals of the conclave. 🫣 What is this movie. Cardinal Lawrence would never.

And since it is BRIAN BLESSED, a man who's always playing to the back of the house, you get scenes like this one in which Piccolomini openly throws his hat into the ring. I am agog.

I cannot objectively recommend this movie, but what I can say about it is that it features BRIAN BLESSED as Enea Silvio Piccolomini, i.e. the future Pope Pius II. (Does it count as a spoiler if it's for a medieval conclave?)

Going down a series of rabbit holes following yesterday's events led me to the discovery that as well as the more well known "Conclave" (2024) there is also "The Conclave" (2006), an intensely early 2000s made-for-TV-on-a-shoestring-budget movie about the papal conclave of 1458.

I don't think anyone had Prevost very high on the lists of the papabili—wow. What a moment to get to witness, the first pope from the United States. (The first pope to be a baseball and/or American football fan?)

I've updated my " #Premonstratensian Order in the Middle Ages" bibliography site. It now contains 6,250 entries & covers:

— Secondary lit on the order, 1480s-2025
— 22 languages from Basque to Swedish
— Array of digital & print sources
— Themes, houses & individuals

www.geneseo.edu/researchweb/...

Today at Geneseo, a community rally in support of science and higher ed in general—3:30-6pm in Bailey Hall! History Department faculty will be there.

"Switzerland’s Abbey of Saint Gall has agreed to lend 17 manuscripts to the National Museum of Ireland ... for a landmark exhibition that will combine artefacts and parchments to recreate a sense of Ireland’s golden age as the “land of saints and scholars." #medievalsky

On my summer to-see list!

The May 2025 issue of BBC History Magazine @historyextra.bsky.social is out, and includes a piece by me on the famed relationship of Abelard and Heloise, and why it can't just be simply summed up as a love affair.

www.historyextra.com/magazine/cur...

Agree with the author at a minimum that a Battle of Clontarf movie or miniseries would be wonderful, but I feel like so much would depend on whether they truly get that Beard looking Silken.

We're a ways away from you, but we'd happily welcome new students at Geneseo, if your students are willing to consider Western NY weather. (Currently 5% of our student body are History or History Ed majors, we've got a History MA program, we've got a newly renovated library, etc.)

Get thee to a nunnery ✝️

A good chorus of "Oh no he isn't"/"Oh yes he is" or something is needed every so often! (Not that I've done that specifically, but I have e.g. made my survey course sing rounds to underscore a point re: medieval society—they learn something & also bond through shared mortification/resentment of me)

Which is fine and has a useful purpose! But surely not what we're trying to do at uni level? Storytelling is good but I think it's better when you get a call-and-response going. I'll do mini-lectures but I'm always trying to get students talking back to me during, even en masse. Like a panto :D

... plus what I retain is most often the "huh! interesting!" fact or anecdote rather than a long-term understanding. Something like IOT models how to back-and-forth question, which is good, but podcasts are generally trying to inform/entertain rather than educate.

I will regularly listen to a podcast like "In Our Time" because I like hearing about knowledgeable experts being pushed to explain a broad array of topics by an interested layperson—but I'll also listen while cooking or cleaning so I can zone out for stretches...

I've had the same experiences this semester when showing students that their "citations" are hallucinated, and obviously so to anyone with any knowledge of the field—the reflexive *anger* directed at me has been startling and new. Like, unnerving levels of anger.

"The 15th-century Arma Christi was found in a shoebox filled with leaflets from the 1980s at Bar Convent, by Dr Hannah Thomas, while she was cataloguing the religious order's collection."

www.bbc.com/news/article...

While working on slides for my classes this week, I came across this portrait of the 13th-c. pope John XXI, and I am both agog at and charmed by the luxuriant mustachios that the artist bestowed on him. Poirot is envious!

(Portrait: Unknown artist, 16th c., now Gallery of the Archbishops of Braga.)

Sad sad story about the ransacking of Sudan's national museum by RSF fighters. Thousands of artefacts are gone.

The museum "held mummies dating from 2500BC, making them among the oldest and archaeologically most important in the world."

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/m...