Charles West @Pseudo_Isidore Twitter profile

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

Layers of history.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

"All right", said John, "but I'm not signing it".

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

An extract from a Sicilian property register, made in 1141, listing the names of 115 peasants of the village of Troccoli.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Appalling, blithering nonsense.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

"I never thought leopards would eat *my* face".

Сер Пітер Лорд 🇺🇦 😎🇬🇧🇪🇺🌍

@peter_lord

4 years

"One farmer, who asked not be named, said the new Bill amounted to a ‘kick in the teeth’ for Lincolnshire farmers. ... “I thought leaving the EU was a good thing - like a lot of other people, I voted leave. Now, I think we’d be better off staying put.”"

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

One of the most dramatic endings of a medieval chronicle I know - John of Kilkenny signs off during the Black Death (he probably died from it):

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

The ducal palace of Poitiers, where Eleanor of Aquitaine held court.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 months

A map of the itineraries of the 'Holy Roman Emperors', from a political-science style paper on medieval itinerancy.

Andrej Kokkonen

@AndrejKokkonen

5 months

New paper: *Rulers on the Road*. We map emperors’ itinerant rule in the Holy Roman Empire from 719 to 1519 and shed light on how they projected power without centralized bureaucracies. Very fun project with @c_muellercrepon @Clara_NW & Jørgen Møller

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

A reminder from the Remiremont Liber Memorialis that not all early medieval writing was a calligraphic masterpiece.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

"Concerning vampires, who do not exist, no inquiry shall be made" - a very sensible law of King Colman of Hungary, c. 1100 (vampire = "striga").

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

Extremely disappointed that Rees-Mogg hasn't yet suggested re-taking Calais to solve the Dover problem.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

This has to be the best picture of a giraffe I have ever seen (from this blog post by @LuiseMorawetz )

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

This is how to sign a document (Bonifacio 'of Canossa', 1038).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

A magnificently annoyed crucifixion scene (Edzell, c.1500)

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Reports are coming in that the ruler of a troubled state in the eastern Atlantic region is now blackmailing MPs to ensure his grip on power isn't loosened.

Joe Pike

@joepike

3 years

WATCH: Tory committee chair William Wragg MP accuses No 10 of blackmailing backbenchers who have considered calling for vote of confidence in the PM.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

7 years

Writing a lecture on early Islam, I stumble across this evocative 'artist's impression' of late 8th-century Baghdad, perhaps the world's largest city at that date (source:

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

Strong 14th-c. mood.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

I really love this story of how a 10th- c. woman avoided marriage by pulling a funny face when her portrait was painted.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

A Christian woman converts to Judaism and marries a Jewish man in Narbonne; they flee her angry family and arrive in northern Spain, where her husband and children are caught up and murdered in a pogrom; this letter is circulated on her behalf, probably in the 11th century.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

Some personal news: after 15 happy years with the inspiring @unishefhistory , I'm ready for new challenges, and I am delighted to say that I'll be joining @HCAatEdinburgh in the summer. 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Today I'm launching a new podcast series on the 11th century in European history. Each month I'll talk to an expert in the field from across Europe, to discuss their work and hear their perspective. Here's the first, with @RIMooreHistory :

Europe in the 11th century

New perspectives on the 11th century in European history

shows.acast.com

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

Imagine my disappointment when I discover that the Urban Studies journal isn't actually devoted to the eleventh-century pope.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

In conversation yesterday evening, I learned of the discovery of human hairs embedded in seals of early Frankish rulers (visible here in the seal of Chilperic II).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

If I am late in replying to your email, please direct your ire at Cuthbert.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

"The oldest surviving book known to have been owned in the British Isles in the early Middle Ages is a late fourth-century North African copy of the letters of Cyprian.... It was possibly made in Carthage, and it had probably reached the British Isles by the eighth century"

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

The remarkable star cloak of Emperor Henry II, c.1020. It describes him as the 'glory of Europe'.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

8 months

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

Wonderful: a late 11th-c scribe erased a prohibition on priests' marrying, and replaced it with the statement: "Right it is that a priest love a pure woman as his bedfellow".

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

11 months

"The Book Amazon Doesn't Want You to Read" - out now via Blackwells, or your local bookshop @utpress

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

One of my students has turned up for today's seminar dressed as a monk. This has not happened before.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

7 years

They've really mellowed.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

The site of Old Melrose, where Cuthbert became a monk in the 650s.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

The "Novgorod codex", a wax tablet c. 1000, discovered in 2000. Russian scholars have tried to decipher the traces of writing of 100s of texts on the wood underneath the wax, as a "hyper-palimpsest".

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

Well, this is exciting:

University of Toronto Press - The Fall of a Carolingian Kingdom

The Fall of a Carolingian Kingdom investigates how the first royal divorce scandal led to the collapse of a kingdom, changing the fate of medieval Europe. Th...

utorontopress.com

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

*cancels rest of day*

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

I think Offa wanted a relationship of equals to Charlemagne, too.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

The early Middle Ages, dwarfed by the later Middle Ages at Poitiers.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

Inside the cathedral of Siracusa. The columns on the right are the skeleton of the Temple of Athena (5th c. BC), which was incorporated into the church. *swoons*

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

A rather splendid coin minted in the name of King Stephen and Queen Matilda, around 1142.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

A 2nd-c. fresco preserved underneath the Lateran basilica.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

The world's oldest working clock, or so they say...

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

A fascinating reminder of how the Middle Ages was literally stripped away from ancient sites.

Alex Sakalis

@alexsakalis

4 years

The Frankish Tower on the Acropolis was built in the 13th or 14th century on the Acropolis in Athens as part of a medieval palace complex. Dismantled in 1874 as part of a misguided effort to clear the hill of post-classical buildings.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

The four horsemen of the Apocalypse (Silos Beatus, made around nine centuries ago)

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

A 15th-century image of Notre Dame (source: )

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

Just your regular reminder that while medieval may be a modern concept, modern is a medieval one.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

7 years

As modern governments fiddle about with universities, a reminder that it’s an institution much older than the nation state. (From the new Cambridge World History, vol. 5)

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Some personal news :)

The British Academy

@BritishAcademy_

3 years

We're delighted to announce our latest cohort of Mid-Career Fellows. Read more about the full list of #humanities and #socialsciences research projects funded:

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

This runestone, some 30km north of Stockholm, was commissioned by a man who'd served in Byzantium; it's to commemorate his mother Fastvi. Undated, but could be broadly 11th-century.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

On brand face-mask.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

A gilded domed ceiling in the palace of the Alcazar in Seville, in the "hall of the half orange". Ibn Khaldun may have seen it.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

Looking forward to introducing my students on Weds to the oldest known map of Europe, by Lambert of St-Omer, made c. 1115.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

What's the Latin for "nuclear weapons", you ask?

Papa Franciscus

@Pontifex_ln

5 years

Usus energiae nuclearis ad bellum immoralis est, sicut item immoralis est possessio armorum nuclearium, sicut iam dixi abhinc biennium. Iudicabimur de hoc. #DebellaArmaNuclearia #Hiroshima #IterApostolicum

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

8 years

Scrolling through a 400-page pdf on a tablet, I am reminded of why the codex won out over the roll in Late Antiquity.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

Has anyone else realised that manuscript shelfmarks are perfect for unguessable passwords? eg. ParisBnFlatMS5095

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

John of Damascus shown writing the manuscript (Sacra Parallela, 9th-c).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

The stunning mosque of Cordoba, completed when the city was perhaps the largest in western Europe.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

1 year

The "Gunthertuch": a silk tapestry showing a triumphant Byzantine emperor, repurposed as a burial shroud for an 11th-c. bishop of Bamberg in Germany.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

Ah, the Routledge generic book cover strikes again.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

A Merovingian double sarcophagus from Poitiers. Not sure I have seen one of these before?

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Goodbye to the wonderful city of Brno (2nd largest city of Czechia).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

7 years

I'll always think of Charlemagne like this from now on (ht @ParvaVox )

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Delighted to have signed a contract with @utpress to write a new source-led study of the rise and fall of Lotharingia, 855 - 869.🥳

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

Despite his lugubrious air, Cuthbert is enjoying his first autumn.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

Some details of that major new Norman Conquest hoard (for those not wanting to click on the Daily Mail)

Couple find £5,000,000 in one of biggest ever treasure hoards

They found nearly 2,600 ancient coins that are believed to be around 1,000 years old.

metro.co.uk

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 months

Cuthbert visits his namesake's priory.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

A guide to seven alphabets, in a manuscript owned by an 11th-c. Bavarian monk who'd studied in Chartres (Munich clm 14436)

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

An 11th-c. set of genealogical tables from Anjou (one of the earliest examples of the graphic technique)

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Of course the monks have won a legal dispute using an old charter.

Trouble brews between Trappist monks and Belgian mineral empire

David and Goliath legal battle ensues as silent religious order seeks to protect the taste of its beer

www.theguardian.com

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

I discover a website with 13th-c. chant recordings 'auralized' to Hagia Sophia's acoustics. Sit back and meditate in Byzantium

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

@michaelgove Mr Gove, he literally just admitted to breaking the law by driving to Barnard Castle, during the lockdown and without being confident about his eyesight.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

Library: if books aren't borrowed for 3 years, we'll dispose of surplus copies. Me: *goes to library for emergency borrowing and instant return*

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

Cuthbert hopes you have a good weekend.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

Lucca is a beautiful place.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

An 11th-c. boyband? (Monte Cassino 132, p. 444).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

Reflections on the 'Anglo-Saxon' debate

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

5 years

Here's the famous Calf of Man crucifixion stone: usually thought, @HLStn tells us, to be Irish, maybe 8th-c.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

"recent forensic analysis of Charlemagne’s hair trapped within the king’s seal on document K6, No.7 in the French National Archives in Paris has shown that, before turning white, Charlemagne’s hair was dark brown interspersed with some blonde" well, now you know.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

A 12th-c. Tunisian ceramic bowl, formerly cemented into the wall of a church in Pisa.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

Scenes from the Passion of Christ in Corpus Christ College 286, perhaps brought to England by the missionary Augustine in 597. (fol. 125r)

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

A 9th-c. lead seal belonging to Theodosios, a Byzantine official, found in... Viking Ribe, in Denmark.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

8 years

A coin of Emperor Louis the Pious from his little-known punk phase ()

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

All scribes in the early Middle Ages were clerics, right? Wrong! Meet Robert, a 10th-c lay scribe, here pictured in a now destroyed manuscript from Chartres.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

1 year

First draft of a project to create a QGIS map of participants on the First Crusade, with the help of @JayPasricha at @unishefhistory (yes, there are a couple of errors!)

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

1 year

A representation of the Forum of Nerva in the mid 9th-century, as public space is privatised (via Dey, Making of Medieval Rome).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Monte Cassino: a remarkable place.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

1 year

Fragments of painted stained glass from the Carolingian church in Zalavar (Hungary).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

This privatisation thing is really going too far.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

7 years

Actually, @guardian , people in Anglo-Saxon England mostly walked on two feet.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

7 years

In honour of today's partial lunar eclipse, the cosmic 'starry mantle' of Emperor Henry II, c. 1020.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

7 years

Phone autocorrects Visigoths to "visitors". It clearly has strong feelings on the nature of the end of the Roman empire.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

The Biblioteca Vallicelliana is a treasure.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

2 years

The 12th-c. labyrinth inscribed outside Lucca cathedral.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

Cuthbert is unsparing in his treatment of heretical writings.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

A list of city guild members from 12th-c Cologne.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

4 years

The lion in winter.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

'No priest should drink in a pub', says the text. 'Unless perhaps if he's travelling', adds a thirsty annotator.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

Empress Maria (d. 1118) and her husband Nikephoros, depicted in an 11th-c. ms. Maria was half Georgian, half Alan (a people who spoke an Iranian language), and the only foreign-born Byzantine empress of the 11th century (afaik).

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

6 years

I love that there's a real possibility this 'unnerving' (Nees) ivory carving of the Virgin/Church was made from the tusks of Charlemagne's elephant, Abul Abaz.

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Charles West

@Pseudo_Isidore

3 years

A silver casket presented by a tenth-century caliph of al-Andalus to his heir, now in Girona cathedral.

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