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How do palaeographers write? Four famous manuscript scholars’ hands. (Tilly de la Mare; M. R. James; Malcolm Parkes; G I. Lieftinck—but not in that order!)

CFP for MAMO 2027: The Middle Ages in the Modern World. Looking forward to it! themamo.org/call-for-pap...

Call For PapersThe Call For Papers for MAMO 2027 is now live. Header image credit: Jess Hind & Kyra Radley / Canva Plaintext version: CONFERENCE CALL FOR PAPERS THE MIDDLE AGES IN THE MODERN WORLD 22-24 JUNE …themamo.org

9pm Stanford’s inky skies

Crikey! “Text Technologies: A History”, briefly cheaper than an organic chicken! Just $12.22!

At Balliol, it’s the first time I’ll present my new research on Book Hunters, including Neil Ker and all. Hope it’s not the last time! www.balliol.ox.ac.uk/events/2026/...

A book in the hand. Here’s an absolute tiddly beauty: Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Digby 4. One of the earliest instances of Poema Morale.

Earwig! Long dead, desiccated and stuck between the folios of an enormous thirteenth-century Evesham manuscript. The Bodleian Library’s treasure trove always yields surprises!

What skilled contemporary repair work in this William of Malmesbury autograph manuscript, c.1125. (Oxford, Lincoln College, MS Lat.100)

Neil Ker’s parallel transcription of all seven instances of the Early English Poema Morale, c.1200-1300. Here’s your big data. He completed this in 1932, while finishing his mammoth BLitt thesis on Ælfric Homilies.

Hairy text! Surely a Jersey calf here? Durham Cathedral MS A.III.12.

The utter beauteousness that is the very small English penitential book, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Laud Misc. 482 (eleventh century). Fits in a pocket ready to use at much-needed moments of pastoral care.

The Tremulous Hand of Worcester, and the Romanesque crypt at Worcester Cathedral that was surely known to them

Isn’t this wonderful? The head of a stalk of Rye grass, presumably used as a bookmark in this twelfth-century Bodleian MS from Cirencester. Just lovely.

LOOK at this twelfth-century endtab with attached little leather bookmark holder. Original binding of Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS Jesus College 62

Dorchester Abbey, resting place of St Birinus, is a stunner. From its 12thC font, early 13thC stained glass, and superb Tree of Jesse window… truly glorious.

Enormous great-horned owl sunbathing in my back garden (with lunch tucked under its wing)

Oxford ❤️ Magdalen and the Plain in glorious moonlight. @magdalenoxford.bsky.social

Want to know the date of the Tremulous Hand of Worcester, or why medieval documentary ‘forgery’ is, more properly, imaginative fiction? My book is now available in paperback! 🥳 www.arc-humanities.org/978180270086...

St David’s Day celebration dinner at Magdalen. Hyfryd iawn. Dydd Gŵyl Dewi hapus, pawb! 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁷󠁬󠁳󠁿