One of these days I am going to write a comparative piece on heterodox movements on the fringes of empire starring the Paulicians, Bogomils, Kharijites, and early medieval papacy.
Lucas McMahon
@chrysoboullon.bsky.social
PhD Princeton. The logic and logistics of empire. Foreign affairs, information security, and digital spatial history. Long Roman Empire, sometimes even the Komnenoi. British Academy International Postdoctoral Fellow @ University of Exeter. 🇨🇦
I had fun yesterday giving a paper at the 'Plant Lives: Sacred Interdependencies in the Arts of the Americas' conference at Yale.
It's fun but hardly uncommon to find some Gothic names in late sixth-century Italy, but I had to do a double-taken when I saw a Mithridates.
Today's featured title: "The Sons of St Augustine: Art and Memory in the Augustinian Churches of Central Italy, 1256–1370," by Kristztina Ilko, Oxford University Press, 2026 @academic.oup.com @drkrisztinailko.bsky.social global.oup.com/academic/pro...
One of my favourite historical moments took place on 5 November 869 when Peter the Monk from Rome was called before the Fourth Council of Constantinople for signing Photios' documents and his defense is, "What, me? There are lots of monks named Peter from Rome. Could have been anyone, really."
Pretty amazing to see The Guardian reporting on my article winning the Medieval Academy of America's Article Prize in Critical Race Studies and on medieval chess' potential to reveal a vision of equality and mutual respect! Link in the first comment.
Knowing how the empire works, I'm guessing that the "relocation" is to a concentration camp in Louisiana, or maybe a CIA black site in Kuwait? So many options!
Un plateau de jeu romain découvert aux Pays-Bas. buff.ly/vKaG5iM #Antiquité #HistoireAncienne #HistoireRomaine #archéologie
Grâce aux traces d’usure sur un plateau de jeu antique et à l’IA, des archéologues ont pu établir qu’il s’agissait d’un jeu de blocage romain et reconstituer ses règles
Des chercheurs ont utilisé l’intelligence artificielle pour analyser un plateau de jeu romain découvert à Coriovallum, dans l’actuelle Heerlen, aux Pays-Bas. Une simulation par IA a permis de…
buff.ly
The whole meeting is actually just a black screen and then some prof at retirement age who got their job decades ago with the promise of a 4-page article in a local bulletin comes on and tells you everything is fine and to keep on trying.
I know that I'm one of those digital humanities scholars, but I have zero faith in digital archiving or computers being a way to preserve information over the long term. If Cambridge(!) can't keep Richard Talbert's Tabula Peutingeriana thing alive, what hope does anything else have?
I keep hearing that the Iranian regime's grip is weak, but the lesson from Justinian is that if you tell the security forces to murder the people who complain about you and they do it, maybe you're really not all that weak?
Empires are only as strong as their communication systems. If you're curious how the Romans in the ninth century operated a telegraph that sent messages across 700km from the frontier to Constantinople, the first part of my work on this is now on the Exeter Medieval Studies blog. Link in next post
I will be giving a paper at the History of Liturgy seminar at the IHR in London at 5.30pm on Monday, 16 Feb. Link for in-person and Zoom registration in the first comment. 👇
How to write historical GIS: a: include the minimum technical detail that an expert needs to reproduce your work. Non-GIS reviewers complain it's not detailed enough b: fill 20pp explaining how everything works in detail. No space left for historical argumentation. Reviewers complain it's too long
The next History of Liturgy Seminar is in London @ihr.bsky.social on Monday 16 Feb 17.30. The award-winning @drkrisztinailko.bsky.social on The Augustinian Friars & their Liturgical Cult of Saint Augustine. In-person (chat! drinks! people!) or online: www.history.ac.uk/news-events/... #medievalsky
look, if we don't stand up for Canada Post, governments of the future will claim transit organizations need to be profitable, and hospitals need to be profitable, and schools need to be profitable, and they'll chop up as much of the public trust as they can and sell it to their friends for nothing.
Only a determined course of nation-building backed up with a nuclear arsenal will stave off the American threat. Carney will deliver neither, regardless of how tough he talks.
Now it is at the University of Calgary that Classics & Medieval studies are threatened. Please sign the petition : c.org/WrCPMhK2rm
Can you spare a minute to help this campaign?
Save Classics and Medieval Studies at the University of Calgary!
c.org
Once more unto the breach dear friends, once more. Please consider signing and sharing this petition to help saving the major in Greek and Roman Studies and the major in Ancient and Medieval History at University of Calgary.
Geoffrey Greatrex@otavano.bsky.social · 10mo agoNow it is at the University of Calgary that Classics & Medieval studies are threatened. Please sign the petition : c.org/WrCPMhK2rm
Send the Americanists and The Chief Enabler back to their hell south of the border.
Greenpeace Canada@greenpeaceca.bsky.social · 10mo agoFirst Nations Chiefs are not mincing their words: they are calling on Alberta’s premier to resign, accusing Danielle Smith of conspiring with separatists, violating Treaty rights “I hope you have your bags packed. When this referendum is defeated, I will gladly walk you to the border.”
Somewhere in the Pentagon right now a nameless logistics officer is furiously calculating how many overflowing port-a-potties fit in a C-5 in case Greenland is invaded and Germany decides to turn off the water and power at Ramstein. It will be the most emblematic airlift of our times.
With the first copy of The Sons of St Augustine!
Queens' JRF (@camhistory.bsky.social) @drkrisztinailko.bsky.social's new book, The Sons of St Augustine, challenges major assumptions about the medieval Catholic Church and early Renaissance. Read more about her publication on our website, and the Cambridge University press release.
Wild medieval saints! 🔥🔥🔥 Dragons and miraculously sprouting cherry twigs. An evil walnut tree growing above the tomb of Nero. For these and much more in my book, 'The Sons of St Augustine' (OUP), I am delighted to share the wonderful media release that Cambridge published this morning:
Dragon-slaying saints performed green-fingered medieval miracles, new study reveals
Pope Leo XIV's Augustinian order once performed green-fingered, dragon-slaying miracles. Dr Krisztina Ilko rediscovers their lives and wild power base
cam.ac.uk
“The fault lies with your leadership, elected by you.” He's not entirely wrong - that leadership has spent decades cosy-ing up the Americans, with predictably disastrous results.
