rorymaclellan.bsky.social - Profile | ThreadSky | a Reddit-style client for Bluesky

St Brendan the Navigator and his companions driven away from an island by firethrowing demons. BL, Add MS 17275, f. 262r.

submitted 3 days ago • 0 comments

Proofs! My article on the memory of Henry V under the Yorkist kings and how they struggled to balance condemning him as a usurper while wanting to use him as a model for war with France.

submitted 4 days ago • 0 comments

St Eligius shoes a possessed horse by cutting one of its legs off before reattaching it. BL, Add MS 17275, f. 187v. Particularly like the eye of the horse, more grumpy than evil.

submitted 8 days ago • 0 comments

Early mention of the Voynich manuscript in this 1914 letter from palaeographer A G Little to J P Gilson, Keeper of Manuscripts at the British Museum: "I saw Voynich’s MS and could make nothing whatever out of it: it is quite different from anything I have ever seen before".

submitted 25 days ago • 2 comments

Very relevant since the new American defence secretary has a Crusader tattoo... New podcast episode: Dr Charlotte Gauthier - The Crusades and the Far Right On the misuse of the Crusades by modern extremists religionoffthebeatentrack.substack.com/p/the-crusad... www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8rH...

submitted 28 days ago • 2 comments

"Your request seems to me just another indication of the decline of civilisation in the West. I deplore it." When asking for image permissions, try using this professor's response when she was asked to show proof of permission to use copyrighted material.

submitted 29 days ago • 0 comments

www.bbc.co.uk/news/article... I could give a very short tour: "It's not Templar. Dont forget to tip your guide."

submitted 33 days ago • 0 comments

This was a great project to work on and I'm still doing stuff on this topic, helping out the Jewish Square Mile Project alongside @medievaljews.bsky.social on their exhibition planned for this summer: thejewishsquaremile.org

submitted 40 days ago • 0 comments

Didn't anyone make Gandalf sign the Minas Tirith Archive Usage Policy? Sure, he's #TeamNoGloves, but what about the open flame and the pipe and the beverage? C'mon Gandalf, we need those documents to survive ANOTHER 3,000 years!

submitted 41 days ago • 4 comments

Valencia gets the best graffiti

submitted 43 days ago • 0 comments

Valencia's Santa with his sash and wave has the air of a South American dictator. "Generalissimo Santa, First Citizen and Father of the Nation".

submitted 49 days ago • 0 comments

A medievalist watching the new Nosferatu: "Why does that manuscript have 14th century decoration but is written in a 16th/17th century script?

submitted 54 days ago • 0 comments

More on my project on the British Museum's manuscript provenance records, this time on forgeries offered to the BM in the early 1900s, including Christopher Columbus' secret English logbook: blogs.bl.uk/digitisedman...

submitted 61 days ago • 0 comments

Merlin: Britain’s mountains and valleys shall be levelled, and the streams in its valleys shall run with blood. Also, the public shall have access to Richmond Park. books.google.co.uk/books?id=eXh...

submitted 68 days ago • 2 comments

In 1943, Leverhulme funded a study on "paranormal cognition" by parapychologist Whately Carington. This research was towards his 1945 book on telepathy.

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

During WWII, many British Museum staff were seconded to other government departments. Duncan Wilson, Assistant Keeper of Manuscripts, joined the Political Warfare Executive, which produced white and black propaganda against the Nazis. He later became head of German section.

submitted 75 days ago • 0 comments

Telegram to the British Museum from the Leningrad public library in 1941 sending good wishes and hope that "fascism the persecutor of culture freedom and democracy will be annihilated". BM's response: looks forward to "united democratic victory and destruction [of] Fascist violence and corruption".

submitted 75 days ago • 1 comment

When the British Museum planned for air raids in 1938, all the men working in the Department of Manuscripts (22-26 on the map) were assigned a shelter in the Grenville Library basement, while the one woman staff member, Margaret Hoyle, would have to leg it across the building to a different one.

submitted 75 days ago • 1 comment

"With the ever‑increasing appropriation of the medieval period by the far‑right, the OMC’s reliance on ‘real’ medieval history to win support may herald the start of a new trend on the far‑right, with other neo‑crusader groups also trying to promote a ‘hidden true history’ of the medieval world."

submitted 80 days ago • 1 comment

But a dystopia for Worf, as he has to attend the meetings, but they never listen to his ideas.

submitted 80 days ago • 0 comments

"I guess all we can do now is wait and see what happens, knowing there was nothing we could have done differently to avoid the return of a vengeful administration predicated solely on executing unspeakable, profane horrors."

submitted 87 days ago • 1 comment

Titanic conspiracy theories and Supernatural War Minstrels. My new project looking at the British Museum's Department of Manuscripts internal archive: blogs.bl.uk/digitisedman...

submitted 89 days ago • 0 comments

Carving in Paisley Abbey showing St Mirin on the left being driven away from an Irish king's court. On the right, the king suffers the pain of childbirth as punishment while his courtiers look on.

submitted 95 days ago • 1 comment

Baconian offers what he believes to be Francis Bacon's Bible, supposedly full of invisible writing and somehow proves he was Shakespeare. Is not impressed when the British Museum says they're not interested.

submitted 102 days ago • 0 comments

Reading the correspondence of the British Museum Department of Manuscripts in the mid 1900s and it's good to know that even then they had to deal with letters pushing mad conspiracies about Shakespeare (who was actually Edward VI, apparently).

submitted 102 days ago • 0 comments

A letter from the deputy keeper of manuscripts at the British Museum to the keeper of manuscripts, showing that historians have been annoyed by "King John signed Magna carta" since at least 1941.

submitted 103 days ago • 0 comments