Legacies of Violence?: Catholic Militancy in Paris After the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre Abstract. This article traces continuities and changes in Parisian Catholic militancy after the Saint Bartholomew's Day massacre (Aug. 24, 1572). It evaluates the rites of violence later reactivated by some of the killers, alongside a radicalized faction of their colleagues in the civic militia, who belonged to a younger generation and played a significant role in the later religious wars. Pursuing a forensic examination of the surviving manuscript sources, it provides a new perspective on the killers on Saint Bartholomew's Day by showing how these men were shaped by, and in turn reshaped, the transformation of Parisian society in the sixteenth century.

'Legacies of Violence? Catholic Militancy in Paris After the Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre'

Robert Descimon and I have pubished our article with French Historical Studies (@sfhs.bsky.social), with special thanks to colleagues at @crh.ehess.fr @durhamhistory.bsky.social

doi.org/10.1215/0016...

a man with long hair and a beard is smiling and saying thank you . ALT: a man with long hair and a beard is smiling and saying thank you .

Early modern historians! 🗃️ What book(s) would you particularly recommend for understanding early 17thC France, especially in a global context?

Enslaved: Peoples of the Historical Slave Trade Explore or reconstruct the lives of individuals who were enslaved, owned slaves, or participated in the historical trade.

What are humanities and social sciences research good for? Consider Enslaved.org: putting names to as many of the people trafficked during the Atlantic slave trade as possible. Insisting on the dignity of every human being. #Talkabouthumanities #talkaboutsocialsciences

Front cover of a book - the image in the top half appears to be an embroidery of 6 human figures in an outdoor scene at night, with trees.

I am happy that this book is now published (in the series Connected Histories in the Early Modern World)!

Performing India in Early Modern England 1575-1642
Commerce, Spectacle, and the Formation of the East India Company
By Amrita Sen

www.routledge.com/Performing-I...

Front cover for book titled 'Captured Consent: Contract Labor in English Charity, Colonization, and War, 1600–1700' by Sonia Tycko, with an image of an indenture

Excited to see Sonia Tycko's book rethinking early modern consent and contract labour is now available. This is an important intervention for histories of coerced labour.

'Captured Consent: Contract Labor in English Charity, Colonization, and War, 1600–1700'

When Thomas Ellwood repeatedly flouted his father’s command in 1659 to stay away from the Quakers, his behaviour provoked bitter family quarrels and a beating, until his father eventually found a surprising solution: he confiscated all his son’s hats. Thomas became in effect a prisoner in the house, accepting that it would be unthinkable to go outside without a hat. However strange to us today, this made perfect sense to contemporaries, and such episodes remind us that the multifaceted conventions surrounding dress played an important role in early modern culture. When, where, and how hats were worn, and the gestures in which they featured, conveyed signals about identity and status, could sustain, display, or defy social hierarchies and relationships, and asserted political or religious loyalties.

📣Out now on #firstview

Bernard Capp @uni-of-warwick.bsky.social on 'The Cultural, Social, and Ideological Role of the Hat in Early Modern England'

#Hat #Identity #Social #Clothing #Religion #Family #History 17thc 🎩👒🗃️

👉Read open access: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Workshop Announcement: Practical Archival Skills Training (PAST) Workshop on English High Court of Admiralty Records. 18 June 2026 at the UK National Archives. Banner with an archive image in the background.

Our colleague, Dr Oliver Finnegan, records specialist for the Prize Papers at @nationalarchivesuk, holds a workshop on 'Practical Archival Skills Training (PAST) Workshop on English High Court of Admiralty Records', more info below & tickets can be booked here www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/practical-...

Management consultants are ruining UK universities Relentless off-the-peg commercial rewiring has undermined British higher education

It's me in the Financial Times, detailing the deep and pernicious influence of one-size-fits-all management consultancy in our universities... Take a look! 👇
www.ft.com/content/5032...

Revisiting publishing revenues for a chapter on public history and I'm reminded of the astonishing statistic that UK consumer publishing has annual revenues of £2.5 billion while academic publishing, the bit aimed at the tiny percentage of us working in research, earns £3.5 billion.

Thanks to @jwhittle.bsky.social, @markhailwood.bsky.social, @aucointaylor.bsky.social, @hkrobb.bsky.social (via @tomlukejohnson.bsky.social), for reminding me that my kids are slackers. 🗃️

Lovely discussion of *The Experience of Work in Early Modern England* in the LRB:
www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Festival of Social History To celebrate 50 years of the Social History Society, we’ve teamed up with the Institute of Historical Research to host a Social History Festival! The festival will feature two expert discussion panels, a series of interactive stalls (where you will be able to try your hand at historical zine-making and find out about some fascinating projects run by our members), tours of Senate House, an extended lunch for discussion and interaction, a drinks reception, and an evening keynote lecture. We warmly welcome history enthusiasts of whatever stripe. Booking details are at the bottom of this page.

Next month the @socialhistsoc.bsky.social is hosting a Festival of Social History! Come one, come all! 🗃️

Experts! Projects! Zines! Lunch! Wine!
socialhistory.org.uk/events/festi...

You could try checking Hill's Bengal in 1756-7 for names (or similar sounding ones) if you haven't already

So, um... this is bad. Really bad. I looked at the letters that were translated by the AI, and the very first one I found was almost entirely hallucination. Thread:

I have a 'History Department in UKHE' joke but it's been reduced from 250 characters to 50 and is now merged with jokes from across ten other largely-unrelated disciplines while still being expected to be Just As Funny.

‘The law changed around me’: top Sudanese students blocked from UK universities by visa ban High-achieving applicants’ educational plans derailed by ‘emergency visa brake’

39 Sudanese Chevening Scholarship finalists ejected this week from consideration for the scheme, for being Sudanese.

Update

Photo of Marie Legendre giving a paper on early Caliphate tax regimes

Fantastic to hear Marie Legendre's paper on early Caliphate tax regimes at @imems.bsky.social. It included a great story about the keeper of a cheetah in Abbasid Egypt who was paid in honey...

Image of a book jacket for Beyond the Ocean: France and the Atlantic World from the Crusades to the Age of Revolutions by Christopher Hodson and Brett Rushforth.

Full book jacket just dropped, and we're pretty happy with it. Huge thanks to @cecilefromont.bsky.social, @soccerpolitics.bsky.social, Alice, and Andrés for your generous words! #earlymodern #BeyondTheOcean global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Call for Panelists: FHCS/SHCF-sponsored panel at African Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, December 3-6, 2026 [la version française suit] FCHS/SHCF would like to sponsor one or two panels at the African Studies Association (ASA) annual meeting, held in New Orleans from December 3-6, 2026. You can submit a pre...

Call for Panelists: FHCS/SHCF-sponsored panel at African Studies Association Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA, December 3-6, 2026. Submit your abstract to this Google Form by March 8, 2026

nam04.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...

Happy Holi! Painting by an artist from Vellore, 1820s. @britishlibrary.bsky.social Add.Or.66, full page and detail showing women.

#earlymodern

Hiring established scholars to junior Oxbridge roles imperils disciplines As lay-offs continue elsewhere, postdocs’ inability to land permanent roles will block the pipeline of future faculty, Cambridge academics argue

Raises some important issues but also ignores the fact that many Humanities staff outside the magic circle are facing redundancy. They are naturally willing, indeed desperate, to apply for entry-level Oxbridge posts. The situation is grim. 1/2

野鳥がたくさん描かれたスマホ壁紙用イラスト

壁紙

A plate of various cheeses in front of a PowerPoint slide with the words ‘Tasting History’.

Two presenters in front of a PowerPoint slide.

Man looking pensively at a table of cheese bathed in late winter sunshine.

Yesterday, on the first sunny day of the year, @cheesetastingco.bsky.social and I
ran the Tasting History event at Birkbeck. We tasted cheese, had a conversation with a brilliant audience, and hopefully brought to life the history of the trade and the people who made it happen.

What can medieval England teach us about modern work-life balance? From sick leave allowances to negotiated time off, Alex Brown & @graceowen.bsky.social from @durhamhistory.bsky.social have found that medieval working life was more structured than many assume.
Find out more:👉 bit.ly/3ZC7i1c

Fluffy cat curled up for a nap on a tartan blanket

Timeline cleanse

Thanks for this. I speak of Cassin's views on refugees in “Traditions in Canada’s engagement with the global refugee regime” in Benson, Milner & Nakache, eds. Canada & the Global Refugee Regime: Continuity, Change, Challenges & Critiques, U of Toronto Press, Spring 2026. www.mqup.ca/Books/C/Cana...

Fantastic to make it to Durham Oriental Museum yesterday! Highlights for me were this Tang dynasty female polo player, a katar or push dagger that asks who would win, an elephant or a tiger, and an 11th century bowl from Jingdezhen that slipped in the kiln and fused. Very much relate to the latter!

I'm very gutted to be unable to make this!

Written Worlds: Non-Elite Writers in Early Modern England Who wrote in early modern England? What did they write and why did they write it? How did their writing fit into the wider worlds that they inhabited? In this talk, Sue Wiseman, Brodie Waddell and Michael Powell Davies – all from Birkbeck University of London – will address these questions by introducing their ongoing Leverhulme-funded collaborative project on non-elite writers in England from c.1570 to 1730. Our research explores the writing practices of people below the level of the gentry and clergy, considering their biographical contexts, their motivations and their contributions to written culture. In addition to giving a bird’s eye view of the sorts of writers and texts we are studying, each of the three speakers will discuss a couple of specific examples of particular writers, including the notebooks of a midland villager, the spiritual diary a London wigmaker, and the confessions of a condemned widow. Hybrid | IHR Wolfson Room NB02, Basement, IHR, Senate House, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HU, or Online-via Zoom. 5 Mar 2026 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm

Slide titled Written World with a seventeenth-century painting of a woman writing in a book.

There might be some Other News happening today, but the really important announcement is that...

Sue Wiseman, Michael Powell-Davies and I will be talking about #WrittenWorlds in early modern England at @ihrscb.bsky.social on Thurs March 5th! 🗃️

Register here:
www.history.ac.uk/news-events/...