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Carin Ruff

@carinr.bsky.social

1.3K followers 820 following 4.8K posts

Medievalist, Latinist, paleographer, Episcopalian, with novel in progress. DC-based, with beagle. Web: ruffnotes.org Cover image is from the Reichenau Gospels, Walters Art Museum MS W7 fol. 7r.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · Feb 25

Pinned intro: Most days I make a post about medieval manuscripts associated with a saint of the day and discuss their #paleography. I generally follow medievalists, book history people, Episcopal/Anglican folks, and local Washington, DC history/civic affairs/statehood peeps.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 29m

She's definitely blaming me for the weather. #beaglesofbluesky

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 48m

Shades of LiveJournal ca. 2006.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1h

I find I can't conjure any of them reliably, from fairly recently or long ago. But I'd definitely recognize them instantly if I heard them.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 4h

Within: Katherine Rundell on Diana Wynne Jones; Howell, “Sarabande for the 12th day of any October,” which comes around this year.

David Sinden @sinden.org · 5h

I’ve started an email newsletter this year — quick reads on music, spirituality, literature, and other bits of culture I’m loving lately.

If that’s your thing, there’s a subscribe box at the bottom of the page.

world.hey.com/dsinden/vivi...

Vivid realms and patient trust

Dear lovers of mystery, music, and meaning, 📚 Over the summer, I had a strange epiphany that my new book was by an author my son had also read. I asked him if he had read anything by Katherine Rundell...

world.hey.com

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 5h

This is of course all on top of the canonical requirements to preserve records, which afaict don't automatically result in feasible and archivally sound solutions for individual parishes.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 5h

In sum: doing this as a one-off, parish-level wheel-reinvention project is in most cases a very bad idea. I REALLY wish there were a TEC-level or diocesan level program to facilitate projects like this soup to nuts, but I don't know of any. Worth asking around, though!

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 5h

for oral histories, it would be best to piggy-back on an existing program that will provide training and equipment and help participants figure out how to transcribe and archive what they produce. Our public library system has a program like this that was helpful.

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 5h

The best combo of solutions I think is: a robust staffed, funded, existing archive where a parish can house its own records so they can be preserved in perpetuity and made available—probably diocesan archives, maybe state historical societies or similar. And...

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 5h

onsite or online to keep their own archives and make them available for research, and 2) running an oral history project from scratch involves all those problems plus technology, hours and hours and hours of labor esp. transcription...

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 5h

I've worked with the history committee of my city's oldest parish and also ran a neighborhood historical society for many years. What I learned is: 1) maintaining parish archives is a HUGE problem: w/rare exceptions, individual parishes are not likely to have the infrastructure either +

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

British History Online @bho.bsky.social · 7h

Bulletin of the John Rylands Library goes #OpenAccess

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/blog/2025/10...

#History 🗃️

BJRL Goes Open Access: Professor Carsten Timmermann on Manchester's Medical History - Manchester University Press

BJRL 87:1 is now Open Access on Manchesterhive.

manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 7h

Zooming in from early morning here!

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 15h

Getting the same signals from Dolly, who is much more alert than Bunter was.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 17h

WHAT

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 18h

Thank you for posting this! My mid-19th-c. ancestors lived at Cairnholy Farm. Visiting there is on my wishlist.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

I was on Mastodon for a while and kept being frustrated by the requirement to re-login every time I visited the profile of somebody who was on a different instance. The distributed nature was front and center in a way that impeded usability, imo.

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Matthew Holford @matthewholford.bsky.social · 8d

Next Wednesday 8th October, 12.30-1.30: Jiří Vnouček on "A Tale of Two Parchments" - insular and continental parchment preparation.
In person: @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Weston Library, Lecture Theatre
Or livestreamed.
Free: book here visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk/event/oct25/...

A tale of two parchments

In this talk, Dr. Jiří Vnouček discusses differences in species choice and membrane preparation of 'Insular' and 'Continental' parchment used for book-making in the early Middle Ages.

visit.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

... to specify the general practice so newcomers can feel like they know the drill, and at the same time to give a little instruction about how the liturgy works in written form, is a good combo.

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

There's a lot of wisdom in that. Personally, as I age into the time when I can't always stand up without pain and can never kneel without pain, I have not felt ignored or called out by postural rubrics. I do think the general approach +

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

I posted in response to this earlier that I really appreciate it when churches spell things out reliably. E.g.: WNC's practice on this has evolved and they've reached a state that, imo, manages to be instructive + welcoming w/o being obtrusive. Last Sun's bulletin: cathedral.org/wp-content/u... ⚓

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

Good morning from Dolly!

A senior Beagle standing up on her hind legs, wearing a red harness

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Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

My first rescue beagle, Maddy, had a spay tattoo just like this.

Love & Hisses @mizrobyn.bsky.social · 1d

When I mentioned a few weeks ago that the vet had found a spay tattoo on Esmeralda, there was some interest in the topic. So here's a shot of her lying on the floor, with a circle around where her tattoo is located - and a close-up of said tattoo. It's 1 cm (just under 1/2 inch).

Carin Ruff @carinr.bsky.social · 1d

This is a great story: prcno.org/how-did-a-2n...

How did a 2nd Century Roman headstone wind up in a New Orleans backyard? | Preservation Resource Center of New Orleans

As an archaeologist, I often get questions from the public about odd things that show up during construction or landscaping …

prcno.org

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 1d

Should anyone find themselves in central London on Weds 19 November, consider yourself invited to a book launch! @earliermiddleages.bsky.social www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...

Book Launch: Local Priests in the Latin West, 900-1050

Earlier Middle Ages Seminar- Session 3

www.history.ac.uk

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Reposted by Carin Ruff

Richard Ovenden @richove.bsky.social · 1d

MLGB is back!! Delighted that Medieval Libraries of Great Britain @bodleian.ox.ac.uk is now back online. We are also working had on plans for the next phase of the resource, enhancing & adding data & functionality. HUGE thanks to my colleagues for their hard & clever work mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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