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helengittos.bsky.social
Associate Professor of Medieval History, University of Oxford; parent involved in the Independent Inquiry into Maternity Services at East Kent
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My digital reconstruction depicts Markinch Parish Church under construction. The MacDuff Earls of Fife built it in the early twelfth century to replace an earlier church dedicated to St Drostan. Commissioned Work. © Bob Marshall / Fife Coast and Countryside Trust 2015.

The University of York Centre for Medieval Studies has two full home scholarships for 2025-26 for the MA in Medieval Studies: www.york.ac.uk/medieval-stu...

Today, 24 Feb 2025 **Erik Niblaeus , Libri ordinarii and liturgical reform in medieval Scandinavia** In person @ihr.bsky.social, Senate House or on zoom. www.history.ac.uk/events/libri... #medievalsky

An NHS Trust's law form 'shredded' Ida Lock's CTG trace *after* it had been requested by the coroner... and, it seems, there's nothing the coroner can do. Please @rthonwesstreeting.bsky.social let's have a rapid review of lawyers working in & for the NHS. www.lancs.live/news/lancash...

An email from @mmapod.bsky.social reminds me of the podcast @tommorcom.bsky.social & I recorded with Will Beattie about our work on the Cerne Giant: www.multiculturalmiddleages.com/listen/episo...

An image of Christ from the abbey of Wissembourg. Once thought to be amongst the oldest figurative stained glass but now redated to the later C12th. Nonethless, it's a powerful piece; a gem even amongst the extraordinary stained glass so well-displayed in Maison de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg.

I watched this report from Michael Buchanan last night & woke up to some chap from the government talking about not really regulating social media. This is reporting that never really leaves you. Our poor children. www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0028dly www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1m53p9y5vmo

'Edward​ III liked to dress up as a bird. In 1348, at a tournament in Bury St Edmunds, he revealed himself as a gleaming pheasant with copper-pipe wings and real feathers.' Blisteringly eloquent from @tomlukejohnson.bsky.social www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

18 February 2025, 5.00pm, Balliol Online Lecture: join Professor Heather Sharkey for her talk ‘The Sudanese Giraffe Who Went to France: The Life and Afterlife of Zarafa, 1824–2024’. Further info and to register: https://buff.ly/3EDdWgv

I'm glad to have read this; wouldn't be bad to paste into the back of a student handbook or two.

The view from Strasbourg cathedral on a very cold January day.

There's still time to get tickets for #CALive25 at UCL's Institute of Education. We’d love for you to join us to hear the latest news on important discoveries and leading research projects from Britain and further afield. archaeology.co.uk/live

Bill Kirkup will give evidence at Ida Lock's inquest next week. 10 years on from the Morecombe Bay report, it seems too little has changed. Meanwhile @ekhuft.bsky.social's recent board meeting had no proper discussion of new report into neonatal deaths or CQC inspection... lep.co.uk/news/newborn...

Not in Oxford, calendar conflicts? Fear not! The Ford Lectures by Professor Jocelyn Wogan-Browne--French in Medieval Britain--are wonderful AND recordings of the first three are already online at www.history.ox.ac.uk/james-ford-l.... #medievalsky

Silver deposits in western Europe... Such an important map for understanding aspects of the early middle ages! From metalla.org/index.php/ME...

We have until 25 Feb to gather opposition to a proposed U.K. change in copyright law that default allows AI to use our creations. Please consider adding your name here www.aitrainingstatement.org #ai #art #academia #writing #creative #HE

My nearly-13-year-old badgered me to watch #mastersoftheair - and I'm so glad he did. Based on a historian's account & oral testimony it's brilliant at conveying lived experience - & leading you to the documentary. 'It's impt we create a library where people can understand what it took.' (Spielberg)

'The landscape shaped my identity, this house embodies who I am, & what I am.' 'The house to me is on hallowed ground'. A striking articulation here of ideas that might lie behind things like placed deposits in early medieval houses. www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

So exciting: a C13th fresco of an Islamic tent in a chancel of a church in Ferrara, prob depicting a real one hung on special feasts. 'At first, it seemed unbelievable...I...only went back to it yrs later with more experience & a braver attitude to research.' www.cam.ac.uk/stories/islamic-altar-tent

The head of a late antique handpin, made in ?Pictavia, found in Dorset, recorded @findsorguk.bsky.social. These are such fascinating objects; here's Susan Youngs' map of some findspots of pins & moulds (many more moulds now found at Rhynie) and an image of one from Norrie's Law.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Wow! The Galloway Hoard speaks: 'This is the community’s wealth.' Such fantastic work.

And a letter from David Hinton to @currentarchaeology.bsky.social about the Cerne Giant: the-past.com/shorts/lette...

My (very short!) review of A Date with the Two Cerne Giants in @currentarchaeology.bsky.social. the-past.com/review/books...

Empathy's stretch. 24hrs on my (almost) own by a deathbedside. Layers of lives lived. Fragility & tenacity; tension & tedium; vividness & exhaustion. How to know what the barely conscious mind feels? How different it must be without morphine. The sun sets.

Why is maternity care so slow to improve? Bill Kirkup said there needed to be intense focus on the essentials not long checklists of actions. 2 1/2 years on and @ekhuft.bsky.social has 753 tasks in its maternity improvement programme...

What I will say is that if you’re concerned by this news as a member, as a fan of any of EH’s properties, or simply as someone who likes to walk around ruins, country houses and prehistoric sites, please write to English Heritage to say so. Your voice matters the most.

'Staff at English Heritage have been shocked to discover that the cash-strapped organisation is planning up to 200 redundancies and the winter closure of various...historic sites in its care. At least 7% of the workforce could be affected, with curators being particularly targeted, it is believed.'

This week my employer of 17 years English Heritage announced 200 jobs lost, and my Alma mater Cardiff Uni announced 400 jobs lost. The planning system that protects our heritage and provides thousands of archaeology jobs is at risk, and Higher Education is in free fall more generally #ThisIsFine

This is, apparently, a Byzantine tintinnabulum, dating from the 5th-7th centuries. Look at those multi-coloured glass bells! vmfa.museum/piction/6027...

Would you like to be the next Chichele Professor of Medieval History @oxhistoryfaculty.bsky.social? Applications now open.

What a sight that will be! 'After that then up the Thames maybe as far as Tower Bridge.' www.bbc.co.uk/news/article...

Ancient History on the list to be discontinued at Cardiff. I know we'll do everything possible to fight this, but it's very bad news for our discipline, and for our society. 😔

What would Bede have made of this?! The astronomical clock in Strasbourg cathedral calculates not only terrestrial time & celestial events but also saints' feasts and the date of Easter. Each day at midday Strasbourg time, the mechanical cock crows three times. The original C14th cockerel ...

A portable reliquary found at the feet of a woman buried in the late seventh century in Hessigheim, Baden-Württemberg. One of the most astonishing things among many in #TheHiddenLänd @almbawue.bsky.social.

Really proud of the latest Time Team podcast episode. pod.fo/e/2a1a15 Hear from the volunteers recreating the longship found at Sutton Hoo. Plus, the new theory which attempts to explain how Byzantine treasures found their way to the Suffolk site. @helengittos.bsky.social @timeteam.bsky.social