Had a very enjoyable time attending the 'Seeking the Wooing Group' conference last Friday and Saturday. Learned a lot from the real experts on these curious, striking early Middle English works.

Delighted that the first essay in CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW, a special issue of Public Humanities, ed by me & Eleanor Barraclough, is now available! Check out @thecelticist.bsky.social brilliant essay ‘De Ira’ & bookmark this page for further essays this autumn! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Getting back to my desk after a long spell of leave, and deeply saddened to learn of Julia Boffey's death. An excellent scholar, also unfailingly generous and great at teaching.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... Working on and with fragments is always an excitement and privilege, but as a scholar who sometimes writes about drama, identifying one of these fragments as derived from a fifteenth-century secular play text has been particularly thrilling.

Medieval Guernsey reading habits revealed in hidden manuscripts

Archivists discover 17 manuscript fragments from medieval times were repurposed as book covers.

bbc.co.uk

I've a block of leave coming up, so I've just finished writing a paper to give in late September (at the Wooing Group conference). Doing it this far ahead feels much more comfortable--like the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium papers, which *have* to be written a month in advance!

I’m thrilled to be taking part in this year’s amazing @sims-mss.bsky.social mss online lecture series to share my work on the pecia system and university book production! 🤗📜🎉 www.library.upenn.edu/sims/event-s...

The Pecia System and the Medieval University Book Trade, ca. 1200-1340

Alison Ray (Royal Irish Academy Library) explores how medieval manuscripts were mass-produced at universities in the thirteenth century at low cost for members of the academic milieu.

library.upenn.edu

Save the date! The next Dorothy Whitelock Lecture will take place on 3 December at 4pm in the Schwarzman Centre. Prof Joyce Hill will talk on 'Nostri didascalus aevi: Pedagogic Creativity in the work of Bede and Ælfric’. All welcome! No booking required english.web.ox.ac.uk/event/nostri...

Prof. Joyce Hill, 'Nostri didascalus aevi: Pedagogic Creativity in the work of Bede and Ælfric' (Dorothy Whitelock Lecture 2026)

english.web.ox.ac.uk

The CFP's out for the next Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, on 'Scandal', running next February:

2027 Call for Papers | Medieval Colloquium

Information about the 2025 meeting of the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, including the call for papers, plenary information, and more.

sewaneemedievalcolloquium.com

The 2026 Gender and Medieval Studies conference runs at Univ in Oxford on 8–10 September—registration's still open right now! Theme's 'gender and creativity'.

Enjoyed reading this systematic look at steady rhyme across what's often seen as a period divide. global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Very exciting to see the original, and people should. That said: the 1:1 replica in Reading town museum is very exact apart from a few bowdlerisations, and can be visited for free.

Jack Tindale@jacktindale.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Finally managed to get Bayeux Tapestry tickets. Sold out to Members' until December so goodness knows how the general public are going to manage.

Exciting news for anyone interested in the fifteenth century. The UK's annual conference will this year take place in the beautiful city of Canterbury on 3rd-5th September 2026, hosted by MEMS @kent.ac.uk - and registration is now open. Hope you can join us: blogs.kent.ac.uk/memsnews/202...

Great news, please share widely: the Faculty of Humanities, University of Helsinki will open a permanent university lecturer position in Digital Humanities in Autumn 2026. Teaching-focused, future-facing methods role, linked to LingDig, HELDIG and SSH-wide methods teaching. More details in August.

I learned a lot at the International Conference on Middle English last week! Many thanks to the organisers, the hard-working student helpers, and everyone who gamely laughed at the jokes in my plenary teaching workshop.

Off to Zurich tomorrow for this: www.icome2026.uzh.ch/en.html

Worcester College, Oxford, is advertising the Isenberg Junior Research Fellowship in 20th Century British or American Fiction or Literary Journalism (deadline 7th June) www.worc.ox.ac.uk/about/vacanc...

Got the first readable draft of a conclusion to the chapter I've been working on, which's always a good moment. And the typescript for New Verse-Craft in English has comfortably broken 70,000 words.

"However, if some institution is interested in taking over a vital and well-tested resource, this is the time to make your interest known. In practical terms, this will presumably mean funding at least a half-time editorial position and undertaking to keep the MED free (with no paywall)."

"The MED as an online service...will continue indefinitely; and I myself expect to continue to update the content as long as I am able, more or less as an unfunded hobby in retirement -- not all that different from what I do now. So do not worry: MED is not going away any time soon."

🚨 #medievalsky 🚨 Middle English Dictionary update via FB: "In its 100-year history, MED has enjoyed periods of support, and periods when that support was lacking. It is about to enter on one of the latter. After this year...UMich will no longer fund ongoing editorial work and maintenance." 🧵

Interested in Caroline Minuscule or in things Celtic or in Alfred the Great? Then come and hear Dr Jason Chess at the latest London Palaeography Seminar @ies-sas.bsky.social: Tuesday 28th April, 5:30pm. Book here for in person or online attendance: ies.sas.ac.uk/news-events/...

The Celtic reception of Caroline and its contribution to the Alfredian Renaissance

ies.sas.ac.uk

Eleven(!) funded doctoral positions spread around Europe!

EUARTHURS@eu-arthurs.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Applications are open for the EUARTHURS MSCA Doctoral Network! We're seeking researchers to explore Arthurian heritage across Europe (UK, CH, FR, NL, IT, IS). Fully funded & international. Deadline: 4 May. euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/422753 #AcademicSky #MedievalSky #MSCA

Giving two papers on Middle English poetry this week: one in person in Geneva on Wednesday, one remotely for DIMEV on Saturday.

I'm amused that the automoderation has decided the engraving of statuary in the preview card counts as adult content. There's a 'grow up and think about form' slogan here somewhere.

Daniel Sawyer@danielsawyer.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Fun-looking 1-day conference on 22 July, 'Reframing Poetics: Language, Structure, Form'. Proposal abstracts due by 15 May. Sounds like the sort of thing that benefits from a whisper in the ear from the Middle Ages. (I'm otherwise engaged and can't attend to offer any whispering myself.)

Fun-looking 1-day conference on 22 July, 'Reframing Poetics: Language, Structure, Form'. Proposal abstracts due by 15 May. Sounds like the sort of thing that benefits from a whisper in the ear from the Middle Ages. (I'm otherwise engaged and can't attend to offer any whispering myself.)

Reframing Poetics: Language, Structure, Form

A one day symposium at the UCL Institute of Advanced Study, considering the materiality of language in poetics.

eventbrite.com

Chapter I've been chipping away at has reached the stage where I raise my head from the fine detail and have to recover the overall argument.

I had the equivalent job 2019–22; I've no special insights, but will happily try to make the job and the system it sits within more legible if you're thinking of applying and aren't familiar with Oxford. Email me.

Daniel Sawyer@danielsawyer.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Merton College, Oxford are advertising a career development fellowship in medieval English—a four-year teaching-and-research post: www.merton.ox.ac.uk/vacancies. D/l 9 AM, 24 February (think of it as 23 February!).

Merton College, Oxford are advertising a career development fellowship in medieval English—a four-year teaching-and-research post: www.merton.ox.ac.uk/vacancies. D/l 9 AM, 24 February (think of it as 23 February!).

Vacancies

merton.ox.ac.uk

Made a macro for single-key-press en-dash. How did I live without this?

Honestly thought this was a nice, quite legible hand! Maybe it's all the 18C hands I've been staring at this month. This prompts me to make a short 🧵 about recent thoughts about handwriting and palaeography: (1/11)

Carin Ruff@carinr.bsky.social · 8mo ago

I decided to take a break from reading (about) Aquinas's handwriting to open some mail that had been accumulating on my hall table. And lo: a card from one of my three most paleographically challenging friends, a buddy from textual criticism class long ago. It says... 🧵