Here is what happened when my brilliant friend made me a medieval birthing relic for when I went into labour. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/a-welcome-...

A Welcome for a Baby

This post is just about a lovely set of coincidences that made me think about community and kindness - it’s not terribly complicated.

lucyallengoss.substack.com

Here's my new post. I have a two-week-old baby, and I've been reflecting on the ways this shared experience of waking - and working, and writing - with a tiny baby in the night has its own surprisingly full and rich history. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/waking-wri...

Waking, Writing, Rocking: A Micro-History of Sleepless Nights with Babies

This week, I started reading Erin Maglaque’s fascinating book Presence: A Hidden History of the Female Body, which I encountered through a powerful extract published in the Guardian.

lucyallengoss.substack.com

It was so much fun, and such a privilege, to answer these questions!

Mathew Lyons@mathewlyons.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New on the Writer's Bookshelf this morning: eight questions about writers, books, and reading with the wonderful @lucyallengoss.bsky.social mathewlyons.substack.com/p/the-writer...

I really loved writing this! It's a speculative take on The Merchant of Venice and Jewish food history, via the wonderful anecdotes Eleanor Barnett finds in the Inquisition records. Guaranteed to make you hungry, I'm afraid. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/ox-tongue-...

Ox Tongue in Green Sauce: An Appetite for Jewish Foods in 'The Merchant of Venice' and Venetian Inquisition Records

There is a paywell on the very last section of this post, because I get into spoilers for what I am working on at the moment.

lucyallengoss.substack.com

New post, with a little new reading of Pearl and temporality, which I am quite excited about TBH. What do you think? Does it hold up? substack.com/home/post/p-...

Planting Peonies in the Gardens of Time

Taking Stock of Big Changes and Small Transitions

substack.com

Here's my quick take on the identification of another portrait of Anne Boleyn - and why we are so keen on this particular kind of 'discovery'. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/dead-queen...

Dead Queens Don't Kiss Back: The 'New' Portrait of Anne Boleyn and the Fetishising of Famous Female Faces

A couple of days ago, the Guardian reported on an article by Karen Davies, Hassan Ugail, and David G.

lucyallengoss.substack.com

This might be nice reading for a weekend afternoon just after Easter. It's about Lindisfarne, and mortality, and ordinary remains. open.substack.com/pub/lucyalle...

Fishbones, Sea-Glass and Crinoids in a Lindisfarne Grave

This Easter, my daughter and I went up to Northumbria, to near Lindisfarne.

open.substack.com

🎙️ Nina Doyle (Féileacáin) spoke with Sally-Ann Barrett on Midlands 103 Saturday Focus about the need for statutory paid leave for pregnancy loss <23 weeks & a proposed certificate of pregnancy loss for Ireland (01:17-16:06) 🔗 www.midlands103.com/podcasts/sat... Ping #PLRG_PLACESproject

Medieval medicine, very recent scientific findings, and maybe a snippet of a new reading of six-hundred-year-old poem. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/medieval-m...

Medieval Medicine: A Pearl as a Cure for Melancholy

A couple of days ago my wonderful colleagues Penny Bernard and Diane Heath organised a visit to Temple Newsam museum, just outside Leeds, where - amongst other things - we were transfixed by the fasci...

lucyallengoss.substack.com

I'm writing about pearls and lapidary medicine, and a couple of things that I think are actually, possibly, new news about the medieval poem Pearl and its context. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/medieval-m...

Medieval Medicine: A Pearl as a Cure for Melancholy

A couple of days ago my wonderful colleagues Penny Bernard and Diane Heath organised a visit to Temple Newsam museum, just outside Leeds, where - amongst other things - we were transfixed by the fasci...

lucyallengoss.substack.com

Here's a book review post: substack.com/home/post/p-...

The Myth of the Perfect Pregnancy: Why Are We Still Patronising Women?

A historically-contextualised book review, with angry bits.

substack.com

Pulling on the Threads of History: Writing 'Good' and 'Bad' Tudors open.substack.com/pub/lucyalle...

Pulling on the Threads of History: Writing 'Good' and 'Bad' Tudors

Cynthia Harnett, H. M. Castor, and fictions of Henry VII

open.substack.com

It’s so common to come across the assertion that books were luxury objects exclusively for the elite in the Middle Ages that I want to guest curate a massive exhibition called “Meh-nuscripts: Books for the Many,” which features just workaday or unremarkable objects.

Did you know that in 1633, a woman called Catherine Tuggy had a plant nursery getting rave reviews, on the site of an old monastic garden in Westminster? Women belong in horticulture. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/catherine-...

Catherine Tuggy's Plant Nursery in 1630s Westminster: Women in Horticulture

.... aaaand a bit on the gender pay gap.

lucyallengoss.substack.com

@drdavidrundle.bsky.social Hello! This is a niche question but I am sure you will know - do we have evidence for the monks of Westminster making their own parchment in the fifteenth/early sixteenth centuries? (I have a convoluted interest in cows pastured on Long Acre!) Would love your expertise!

Anyone know the etymology of the colour/dye word 'gingeline'? I wondered if, like 'grideline' it comes from a corruption of 'de line' (flax). I am loving this quotation about 'silk grogans, satins, velvet fine/ The rosy-colour'd carnadine/ Your nutmeg hue, or gingerline/ Cloth of tissue or tabine'.

Look what arrived today, or at least the ebook did. This is the first encyclopedia devoted exclusively to medieval women’s writing globally,focusing on the thousand-year period between 500-1500. Entries on about 250 women writers plus longer thematic essays. You’re welcome.

I'm really proud of this post (so I am correspondingly nervous about sharing it). In it, I'm arguing against the narrative of grief as 'love with no place to go,' which I think is damaging and dismissive. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/stob-fobbi...

Stob fobbing women off with 'grief is love with no place to go'

Can we please just acknowledge that sometimes, it hurts for a reason?

lucyallengoss.substack.com

Wonderful news from Birkbeck's School of Historical Studies. We're hiring not one but TWO open-ended, full-time roles: Medieval Studies, and History of Art! cis7.bbk.ac.uk/home.html#fi...

Check out the CFP for the Gender & Medieval Studies conference in Oxford in Sept! Theme is ✨GENDER & CREATIVITY✨ Conf generously support by University College, Oxford; the John Fell Fund (Oxford University); the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship; the GMS group; & @guildmedmak.bsky.social

Dr Laura Varnam@drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The CFP for the Gender & Medieval Studies conference 2026 is now LIVE! The theme is Gender & Creativity. The conf will be held in Oxford, 8-10 Sept, abstracts due to me by 13 April. Full details on the GMS website (artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social) medievalgender.co.uk/2026-oxford/

Very saddened by the death of Deborah Cameron this week—a brilliant linguist, feminist, and colleague, who shone bright light on language and gender in society. Here she is talking about why people are interested in linguistic differences between men and women: englishandmedia.co.uk/videos/colle...

Professor Deborah Cameron on Language and Gender

Professor Deborah Cameron discusses Language and Gender.

englishandmedia.co.uk

Such a lovely surprise. Lucy's reading is so perceptive and thoughtful - honestly, if no one ever reads or reviews All My Worldly Joy again, I will be happy with this!

Lucy Allen-Goss@lucyallengoss.bsky.social · 6mo ago

Here's my post, which is about Hamnet, and emotion, and gender, but also about the fantastic new memoir All My Worldly Joy, by Laura Richmond, which totally blew me away. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/when-women...

This is going to be wonderful!

Dr Laura Varnam@drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 6mo ago

The CFP for the Gender & Medieval Studies conference 2026 is now LIVE! The theme is Gender & Creativity. The conf will be held in Oxford, 8-10 Sept, abstracts due to me by 13 April. Full details on the GMS website (artwork by @hellomizk.bsky.social) medievalgender.co.uk/2026-oxford/

I am, on reflection, genuinely stunned that Jonathan Bate got away with writing a review of Hamnet that basically concludes with 'she should have written the book *I* wanted to read' and 'if only she'd thought of making the main character a man!' Thoughts: lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/when-women...

When Women Scream Like Hawks: Emotion, Memoir, and the Hamnet Debate

Today’s post was sparked off by a wonderful book I read, far too quickly and far too late into the night (because I couldn’t put it down): Laura Richmond’s All My Worldly Joy. It was also inspired by ...

lucyallengoss.substack.com

If you are in #NYC next week, come to “Weaving Dreams/#Quilting Community” a panel discussion-sewing demo featuring textile artists/writers/organizers who have inspired me. You’ll get swag to embellish!! #quiltsky #Artsky #Blacksky Pls register by 1/27! www.eventbrite.com/e/weaving-dr...

Weaving Dreams, Quilting Community

Dr. Kim F. Hall in conversation and hands-on demo with fellow quilters Dr. Christa Gilliam, Juandamarie Gikandi, and Jacqueline Johnson.

eventbrite.com

Here's my post, which is about Hamnet, and emotion, and gender, but also about the fantastic new memoir All My Worldly Joy, by Laura Richmond, which totally blew me away. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/when-women...

When Women Scream Like Hawks: Emotion, Memoir, and the Hamnet Debate

Today’s post was sparked off by a wonderful book I read, far too quickly and far too late into the night (because I couldn’t put it down): Laura Richmond’s All My Worldly Joy. It was also inspired by ...

lucyallengoss.substack.com

Here's today's post, on Shakespeare, Jacobean silk making, and what we do with historical records. lucyallengoss.substack.com/p/spinning-t...

Spinning Tall Tales: Shakespeare's Silk Mulberry and Magical Herbs in 'Hamnet'

I have not yet watched Hamnet. I will - I might post about it - but the general excitement about it has brought me back to the novel behind the film. I found Maggie O’Farrell’s writing spellbinding, b...

lucyallengoss.substack.com

It's a Hamnet post for me today - book, not film - because I stumbled across a reference to silk-making in Greer's biography of Hathaway (which O'Farrell cites as an influence), and it got me thinking about the way women's work, and practicality, are portrayed. open.substack.com/pub/lucyalle...

Spinning Tall Tales: Shakespeare's Silk Mulberry and Magical Herbs in 'Hamnet'

I have not yet watched Hamnet. I will - I might post about it - but the general excitement about it has brought me back to the novel behind the film. I found Maggie O’Farrell’s writing spellbinding, b...

open.substack.com

Lysander: but what about Demetrius and HELENA? #MoonMad #SlowShakespeare www.english.cam.ac.uk/research/slo... Disdainful Demetrius & doting Helena in a still from the opening of the BBC Animated Tales Dream; adapted by Leon Garfield, the storytelling stands up well www.dailymotion.com/video/x7umt8z

Monday bump for my workshop 15-16 June Nostalgia and Radical Politics, Past and Present - send in your abstracts! :) www.northampton.ac.uk/research-blo... 🗃️ #skystorians