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Elizabeth Biggs

@elizabethbiggs.bsky.social

2.2K followers 360 following 580 posts

Medieval Exchequer Research Fellow, Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland @virtualtreasury.bsky.social; current research on medieval Ireland; book on Westminster; formerly UWE, York and Durham; was once called Irene Adler; dogs; she/her

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · Dec 19

Slipping in under the wire is my last piece of writing for 2024 - a preview of an article that will come out in, wait for it, summer 2026.

It's a #medievalSky argument about women and the political community as seen through exchequer records.

Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland @virtualtreasury.bsky.social · Dec 19

Our latest Archive Fever, "Rediscovering the Women of the Medieval Irish Exchequer" by @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social, explores the variety of ways in which individual women might encounter the exchequer and English government more broadly!

Read it here: virtualtreasury.ie/archive-feve...

An image on parchment from the Red Book of the Exchquer (TNA E 164/2), depicting a group of clerks working around a checkered table, on which lay a book and several scrolls.

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 2d

Tight turnaround but an open-ended job #medievalSky

Celeste McNamara @celestemcnamara.bsky.social · 2d

Medieval historians, anyone want to come be my colleague at DCU? We’re hiring! universityvacancies.com/dublin-city-...
#historians

Assistant Professor in Irish and/or European Medieval History | University Vacancies Ireland

universityvacancies.com

Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

Greg Sargent @gregsargent.bsky.social · 3d

"The American people are capable of turning the tide against repression even if that feels hopeless...the history of the first red scare teaches us that a better future is possible and worth fighting for."

Nice @davidrlurie.bsky.social historical meditation here:
www.publicnotice.co/p/emma-goldm...

Lessons from a Red Scare

The American people are capable of turning the tide against repression.

www.publicnotice.co

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Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

👻madeline boOoOoOodent👻 @oldenoughtosay.com · 4d

This also isn’t true!!! There is a public consultation NOW OPEN and you can go have your say. Obviously they want to present it as a done deal but it’s not.

hampstead-heath-bathing-ponds.commonplace.is/en-GB/

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 4d

They look like shamrocks, don’t they! They are fleurs-de-lys, the arms of France.

It’s a bit later that they change to the modern version with only the three flowers.

Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

PD Dr. Laury Sarti @laurysarti.bsky.social · 6d

Tenure-track assistant professor "Early medieval history" (Univ. of Copenhagen) www.hsozkult.de/job/id/job-1...

Tenure-track assistant professor "Early medieval history" (Univ. of Copenhagen)

Tenure-track assistant professor in early medieval history at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen The Saxo Institute, Faculty of Humanities, University of Copenhagen (UCPH) invites ap...

www.hsozkult.de

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Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland @virtualtreasury.bsky.social · 6d

For too long, the 1798 Rebellion was told as a man’s story. But hidden in the Rebellion Papers are women’s voices that witnessed, resisted, and sometimes fought. Through a new weekly series curated by @timvrti.bsky.social, we're bringing them back into the light.

J. F. O'Hea. A Scout of '98. "The Yeos'!!!". drawn, printed and published by the Freeman's Journal, 1891. Source: National Library of Ireland

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Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

Jess O'Thomson @jessothomson.co.uk · 8d

Everyone should have the right to go to University. Not because it's superior. Not because a degree should be required for every job. But because everyone should have the opportunity to spend a few years learning how to think critically about a subject they are really interested in.

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 9d

Aha- I was talking about two different possibilities for TV shows. Great and Little Domesday and then the later transnational lordships.

Incidentally, there was an Irish Domesday made later after the English invasion of Ireland, but we have no idea what was in it, because it was lost by 1285.

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 9d

The Mortimers held extensive lands in Ireland, based around Trim. They also inherited the earldom of Ulster and the liberty there in the later fourteenth century.

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 9d

Off to escape reality with … Hampstead Theatre and the RSC’s Titus Andronicus. Well, should be fun and gore all around.

A bare stage with a frosted glass backdrop and stage lighting above. There is one row of red seats in the foreground

Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 9d

I despair at being able to finish article drafts easily any time soon now that the British Library is suspending access to the collections for a week in December and until then, going back to on-the-hour only ordering.

Guys, you are a research library. Make it possible for people to do research.

Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 10d

Happy Michaelmas to everyone who celebrates or remembers it.

In medieval English Ireland, if you were the sheriff of a county and didn't turn up at the Dublin exchequer today without a good excuse, you would be heavily fined ("amerced").

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Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

Royal Irish Academy @ria.ie · 10d

Discover how libraries are helping the Virtual Record Treasury of Ireland to recover Ireland's history.

Join us for a lecture with Dr Sarah Hendriks and see the RIA Library's physical exhibition. 3pm, Wednesday 8 October. Visit https://www.ria.ie/events/ for booking

@virtualtreasury.bsky.social

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 13d

In small lovely things, my granny is in long-term hospice care and last week her aide made sure that she could take part in a renaissance faire held in the wider retirement community.

Not sure if Granny had even ever heard of a ren faire before, but that she gets to experience one makes me happy.

Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 13d

I wish I had good answers!

I'm very conscious that teachers don't have much time to develop new lessons, which is why as an academic, I've been involved in creating resource packs to try to make it easier.

Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 14d

If you went to Bloomsbury on your way, Honey and Co is on my list to try for brunch as I love their lunch sandwiches and cakes.

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 14d

Near-ish to Kings Cross is Sunday in Islington (amazing food, but usually a queue at weekends)

The Half Cup on Judd Street is good.

Dishoom in Kensington is quieter and more interesting than the Kings Cross one for brunch. Victoria unfortunately doesn't have a lot of options near the theatre.

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 14d

I have really good brunch options if you want recs? The museums at South Kensington are always a good shout and usually have good activities on. The Christmas lights in Mayfair are pretty if you want to wander and people-watch on quieter streets.

Wicked will be amazing- it's such a good show.

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 15d

And for a much bigger project with a huge amount of teaching materials: teachingmedievalwomen.org/resources/

And that's just the medieval stuff I know, which is a smaller part of the curriculum. Just imagine how much is out there for modern history!

Resources - Teaching Medieval Women

Resources Here you can find a growing collection of resources compiled by teachers and academics to help support your teaching. These resources are free to use but licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Some...

teachingmedievalwomen.org

Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 15d

Re last repost about teaching women's history in UK schools, it's extra frustrating because there are resources out there to tell much more interesting stories within the curriculum.

Full disclosure, I wrote this one: www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/education/re...

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Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

Margot Finn @eicathomefinn.bsky.social · 15d

'Even when women were mentioned, the report found they were more often victims than protagonists, with the women murdered by Jack the Ripper more likely to be taught in lessons than the female code breakers at Bletchley Park during the second world war 1/2

School history lessons minimise the role of women, report finds

Campaigners say key stage 3 curriculum plays to misogny and teaches a ‘false version of the past’

www.theguardian.com

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Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 16d

Dr Alex Fitzpatrick @animalarchaeology.com · 16d

Anyway, fuck these racist and xenophobic fascists. I’m proud to be an immigrant, coming from a lineage of immigrants over the past 50 years from China and Norway and Ireland.

Fuck borders. Fuck visas. Immigration made me who I am. Fuck you.

Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 20d

Same to you! I hope that we all end up with job security and a flourishing university ecosystem rather than this current wasteland.

Elizabeth Biggs @elizabethbiggs.bsky.social · 21d

I was in that talk too I think? If it was the one he did for those thinking about PhD/DPhils.

Of the medievalists in that year, there's three of us still around iirc, and one has a permanent job. I'm one of the lucky ones with a longish-term postdoc. But afterwards? No idea what I'm doing next.

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Reposted by Elizabeth Biggs

will o’the wisp pooley @willpooley.bsky.social · 22d

“Cataclysmically bad”

This new series of ECR blog posts on the French History Network makes for grim reading, perhaps grimmer even than some in UK #FrenchHistory might have realised.

1st post, anon ECRs in French History on what it’s like right now out there:

frenchhistorysociety.co.uk/6691/

🗃️

ECR in 2025: Part One- What is it like? – SSFH

frenchhistorysociety.co.uk

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