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Philip Allfrey

@drpda.bsky.social

220 followers 110 following 150 posts

Heraldist by night, web developer by day. Lapsed particle physicist. Occasional palaeographer. Accidental digital humanist. He/him

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Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · 2d

In honour of the release of "The life of a showgirl" I've finally gotten around to adding "Unicode burlesque" to my website of DH songs – "What is #DigitalHumanities? The Album" – after only two years!
Thanks again to @quinnanya.me for the inspiration
what-is-dh-the-album.netlify.app/singles/unic...

Unicode burlesque

A #DigitalHumanities song inspired by 'Welcome to Burlesque' from the movie Burlesque

what-is-dh-the-album.netlify.app

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · 11d

There is a clone of Arc called Zen which is based on the Firefox browser engine, which I need to check out.
zen-browser.app

Beautifully designed, privacy-focused, and packed with features.

zen-browser.app

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · 11d

I've been using it for the past year or so, and I find the workspaces and side bar make it easier to manage all the (many, many) tabs I have open. Unfortunately the company has decided to discontinue active development as of a few months ago. browsercompany.substack.com/p/letter-to-...

Letter to Arc members 2025

On Arc, its future, and the arrival of AI browsers — a moment to answer the largest questions you've asked us this past year.

browsercompany.substack.com

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · 23d

Excellent, will do that!

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · 23d

@thegozfather.bsky.social REQ 2 question: I transcribed REQ 2/136/33 for my research a couple of years ago. Are you interested in the dates of the 3 or 4 documents contained therein, to make the catalogue entry more precise than [reign of Eliz 1]?

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · 23d

@spil030.bsky.social @connorsharp.bsky.social @ccrg.bsky.social Thanks all for your replies!

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · 23d

Do you mean de facto, or was there an official naming change? (Very apropos as I'm currently workin pn the definition of an "identifier" database field for a local history project focusing on that very area)

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Sep 6

Thrilled to have been able to identify today a copy of a 15th century papal bull used as binding waste, and thereby establish a terminus post quem for an Old West Frisian text on the verso!

#Paleography #BookHistory

Anne Popkema @annepopkema.bsky.social · Sep 6

Philip has the prize! 🤩🤩🤩

Thanks #BookHistory for sharing & solving, you are all emperors of knowledge!

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Sep 6

I found a match! The document is from 1 March 1412. It was another Nicholas, the secretary of pope John XXIII.
See "Notice d'un cartulaire du clergé secondaire de Liège", Bulletin de la Commission royale d'Histoire, 1872 Vol 14 p.360
www.persee.fr/doc/bcrh_077...

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Sep 6

You're very welcome! I'm thrilled I was able to identify it! I thought I'd got as far as I could with the text, then tried one more search, on Google Scholar for "Nicolas de Pistorio" (with quotes and no h) and there it was! Will be very interested to see how it matches up with the Liege text.

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Sep 6

I found a match! The document is from 1 March 1412. It was another Nicholas, the secretary of pope John XXIII.
See "Notice d'un cartulaire du clergé secondaire de Liège", Bulletin de la Commission royale d'Histoire, 1872 Vol 14 p.360
www.persee.fr/doc/bcrh_077...

Extract from a calendar of a cartulary:
"65 - 1412, 1er Mars, Datum Rome apud Sanctum-Petrum, kl marcii, pontificatus nostri anno secundo."

Then follows a summary of the document in French.

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Sep 6

Sorry, I miscounted. Nicholas is on image 19, 5 lines from the bottom, and the date is at the bottom of image 20
So I would say it dates to the second half of the 13th century.

What looks to be a place name Colmen/Colomen also occurs twice if that's any help

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Sep 6

In image 18, 3 lines from the bottom it reads "dilectum filium nostrum magistrum Nicholam de pistorio". Nicholas de Pistorio apparently died in India after 1291.
In image 19 the last line reads "... martii pontificatus nostri anno secundo", i.e. March in the second year of our pontificate

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Aug 28

A few years ago I took my boys on a tri-modal public transport outing in Auckland: bus to the bus station, change twice to get to the farmers market, ferry to the city, onto the train for a jaunt two stops up the line and back (didn't exit station = free ride) & double decker bus home on the busway!

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Aug 27

I agree this would be the way to do it, though really you would think anyone interested enough to read the article would recognise the abbreviations (I do, but then I can also tell you the associated academic dress at more than one institution!)

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Aug 21

"One day in this last dream of all she would see the little white horse, and he would not go away from her. He would come towards her and she would run towards him, and he would carry her upon his back away and away, she did not quite know where, but to a good place, a place where she wanted to be"

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Aug 21

Very sorry for your loss 💜

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Aug 19

I've come across a couple of TEI projects in passing which may be suitable:

github.com/BetaMasaheft...

github.com/srophe/persons

GitHub - BetaMasaheft/Persons: Authority files for each person

Authority files for each person. Contribute to BetaMasaheft/Persons development by creating an account on GitHub.

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Aug 12

This project is one part fun (writing new lyrics for popular songs to describe elements of digital humanities), one part engaging with the preoccupation of the field in defining what constitutes Digital Humanities (via examples) & one part provocation (does this project count as DH? why or why not?)

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Aug 12

Yesterday I was more than pleasantly surprised to discover that Renata Defelice has published a review of my side project "What is #DigitalHumanities? The Album" including translating one of my songs into Spanish!

revistas.unlp.edu.ar/publicaahd/a...
(If anyone knows the reviewer, please tag them!)

What is #DigitalHumanities? The Album (2022) | Publicaciones de la Asociación Argentina de Humanidades Digitales

Publicaciones de la Asociación Argentina de Humanidades Digitales (PublicAAHD)

revistas.unlp.edu.ar

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Jul 26

Number 39!

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Jul 25

Nice! I've just been thinking this week I need to get back to working on "What is #DH? the Album"
what-is-dh-the-album.netlify.app

What is #DigitalHumanities? The Album

Because defining DH takes a whole album. Or more.

what-is-dh-the-album.netlify.app

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Jul 24

I've been wanting a pedestal desk for my daily workspace for ages, and one finally came up locally in my price bracket a couple of months ago!

Photograph of a wooden desk with brass handles and three panels of gilt-tooled magenta leather, the middle one of which is a sloped writing surface. At the back corners of the desktop are two sets of three small drawers connected by a galleried shelf. In front of the desk is a slat-backed wooden swivel chair.

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Jul 24

Yes, see vol 537 of Hansard from Jul 1993. 2nd reading, committee, and 3rd reading were held over a couple of days under urgency. At least some of the votes were conscience issues (ie not on party lines). 3rd reading vote was 64 to 4 (on p.155) with names given
www.parliament.nz/en/pb/hansar...

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Jul 21

Former Windsor Herald, William Hunt, receives an honorary doctorate. #heraldry

Vexiupdate - Flag news @vexiupdate.bsky.social · Jul 21

19JUL25

At the University of Greater Manchester (former university of Bolton), the man responsible for the new coat of arms of the University after the name change, William Hunt was honored as Doctor in Letters for his help in the renovation.

More at: www.theboltonnews.co...

Philip Allfrey @drpda.bsky.social · Jul 11

Reupping the advice to always talk to the staff when you go to an archive.
Shout out to James at Auckland Council Archives today, who directed me to a record series I didn't know about which had valuable information about one of my local history projects!