Carin Ruff
@carinr.bsky.social
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.
Publication – « Textiles in Manuscripts: A Local and Global History of the Book », éd. Melissa Moreton, Suzanne Conklin Akbari rmblf.be/2026/09/11/p...
Publication – « Textiles in Manuscripts: A Local and Global History of the Book », éd. Melissa Moreton, Suzanne Conklin Akbari
Preserved between the covers of books, textiles offer a remarkable glimpse into how the local production of books was connected to vibrant global trade networks from late antiquity through the earl…
rmblf.be
This came just as I was stocking up with audiobooks for a driving vacation. I put the Doerr and the Mayes on hold from the library and I'm next in line for both, so there's a reasonable chance they'll pop up before my drive home. Thanks, @bluejo.eurosky.social! reactormag.com/jo-waltons-r...
Jo Walton’s Reading List: August 2026 - Reactor
Different ways of thinking about writing, stories, and storytelling, plus an unintentional focus on 19th-century England
reactormag.com
Saint Maurus of Glanfeuil, walking on water, saves St. Placidius from drowning. Not actually by Fouquet (whose day is today) but also from the Hours of Simon de Varye and too excellent to miss.
I have been browsing online for outfits for my niece's Pakistani-American wedding and now my social media ads are entirely plus-size South Asian festive wear and I am not sad about it at all.
Virgin and, peeking out from under her blue robe, Baby J. With fab floral border. From the Hours of Simon de Varye, 1455, by Jean Fouquet.
Ahead of the launch today of the manuscript fragments of Guernsey, on which @tamarajatkin.bsky.social and I have been working with the Island Archives for the last couple of years, I have written up one of my favourite finds: lostmss.org.uk/highlights - Hidden Devotion on Guernsey
Highlights | Lost Manuscripts
lostmss.org.uk
The most intense of sense memories, conjured by Clinton and Stacy on Why’d They Wear That. I had utterly forgotten about wearing little clip-on bears on clothing, ponytails, and every other surface huggable by a microbear, but I definitely did.
Really enjoyed this! My niece, a PhD student in prehistoric archaeology at Durham, is interested in light and the experience of cave art and uses experimental archaeology approaches. Happy to put Alex in touch if you want to DM for contact info, @profgabriele.com.
American Medieval Podcast@americanmedieval.bsky.social · 2d agoHUMP DAY! 🐫 But also new episode! This one is about medieval caves, how they’re thought of as dark, mysterious, and passageways, and how @profgabriele.com & guest Alex D’Alisera would rather be inside. Enjoy! #medievalsky podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/a...
This is remarkable, and incidentally the chart explains why when I moved to Toronto in the mid 90s it seemed like fish was front page news every day for years. I had no context.
Trevor A. Branch@trevorabranch.bsky.social · 3d agoThis is seismic news for fisheries scientists. Northern cod is *the* iconic symbol of total fisheries collapse due to overfishing (and other factors) *and* the iconic symbol of a complete failure to recover for decades afterwards. This is like announcing the complete recovery of bison on land.
Absorbed in a good book: Young man by candle light, painted by Matthias Stomer. It's been his day.
Digging out old transcripts because yes, in my 60s to be rehired for a job I've held before in the same institution I have to re-prove my credentials from the last millennium. I thought I'd share what a pre-grade inflation transcript looks like. (I did get High Honors in the end.) 😉
Hmm, I tried to follow a link to Cambridge UP in an announcement of Robert Gallagher's new book to use the included discount code and I got this error message. I'll explore other avenues for ordering when I feel mentally up to it.
Initial 'B'(eatus) at the beginning of Psalm 1 St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 23; Folchart Psalter (Psalterium Gallicanum with Cantica); 872 CE-883 CE; St. Gall; p.31-32 (www.e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)
Reminder: Call for Papers on historical music pedagogy (aka musical learning in the past!) for the International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, May 13–15, 2027 Proposals due Sept 15, 2026 -- Session ID #8258: icms.confex.com/icms/2027/pr... #medieval #CFP #MedievalSky
Splendid litany St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Cod. Sang. 23; Folchart Psalter (Psalterium Gallicanum with Cantica); 872 CE-883 CE; St. Gall; pp.7-10 (e-codices.ch/en/list/one/...)
You know, for all the b*tching we hear about the failures of DC government, I (Washingtonian who grew up in the '70s-'80s) continue to be astonished that the District I moved back to 15 years ago is one that builds and renovates libraries and does such a gorgeous job of it. +
Martin Austermuhle@maustermuhle.bsky.social · 3d agoIf you ever visited the Southeast Library in Eastern Market, you'll remember it was... cramped. The newly renovated library reopens this Thursday, and it's awesome. The original building is intact, but an expanded ground floor and new basement have doubled the overall size.
Finally caught up, the #Vatican added 31 #Manuscripts last week (29 on friday!) www.wiglaf.org/vatican/2026... Includes Bernardino of Siena in Italian, a ton of Conclave notes, a Caroline Chrysostom, heaps of Pitoni Mass settings, and more! #MedievalSky #Skystorians
Vatican Manuscripts Added Week 35 of 2026
A total of thirty-one manuscripts were digitized during the past week, all but two of them being uploaded on Friday. The largest fraction, ten, came from Ott.lat, with Barb.lat and relative newcomer ...
wiglaf.org
Picture of a dog who definitely did not get up at 6:45 AM to yell at squirrels and then steal and crunch my glasses case.
If you are the praying sort, please pray that my physical therapist has a cancellation this week so I can get in to see her about my lower back pain before I leave on next week's driving trip. #ow
Reposting St. Cloud for the Minnesota crowd, on his day!
Carin Ruff@carinr.bsky.social · last yr.Today is the feast of Cloud (Clodoald), d. 560, patron saint of a favorite city in Minnesota. 🕯️ Clodoald was a Merovingian prince, a grandson of Clovis I. Here he is in the family tree, at lower right with halo, in Bernard Gui's Chronique des rois de France, MS, BNF NAL 1171, f. 136.
This is well worth a listen, especially for discussion of women antiquaries and women's study of Old English, a mostly outside-the-academy subject in the period.
Carin Ruff@carinr.bsky.social · 5d agoAmid all the Bayeux Discourse, I'm enjoying this LRB Podcast episode on early 19c studies of the Not-a-tapestry, a rerun but one I'd missed the first time around. (Sharing the Pocketcasts link because it's not yet listed on the LRB Podcast page.) pocketcasts.com/podcast/the-...
Featuring INLIBRIS booksellers, known to some of us for a recent listing of a notably expensive early medieval leaf. #medievalsky
Roberta Mazza@robertamazza.bsky.social · 6d agoLegal and Ethical Aspects of Oxyrhynchus Papyri Sales facesandvoices.wordpress.com/2026/09/05/l...
More Bayeux goodness: happy to see news of this vol. in honor of Shirley Ann Brown (wife of my Doktorvater, as well as a distinguished scholar of the Notatapestry). www.brepols.net/products/IS-...
Brepols - A Collaborative Tapestry in Honour of Shirley Ann Brown / Une fresque brodée en l’honneur de Shirley Ann Brown
Brepols is an international academic publisher of works in the humanities, with a particular focus in history, archaeology, history of the arts, language and literature, and critical editions of histo...
brepols.net
Girl with a candle. Stunning painting by Godfried Schalcken, a master of candlelight, whose day has been today.
