Interesting. Given that her name is cross perhaps this should count as an 'icon' under my system...

Review of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England
by Jane Whittle, Mark Hailwood, Hannah Robb and Taylor Aucoin. Cambridge University Press, 2025, 362 pp. 978 1 316 51994 3.

SUCH an important book. #Skystorians

Tom Johnson · Save My Beer: Industrious Revolution Labour was once an organic part of the peasant household, done in the interest of subsistence. Certainly many people in...

‘While women certainly undertook vastly more of the recorded tasks for housework and care work, these two categories of labour took up less than 40 per cent of the total time they spent working.’

@tomlukejohnson.bsky.social on early modern work.

www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Cover of The Experience of Work in Early Modern England

If this seems like your sort of thing, you can read the whole thing for free #OpenAccess here: www.cambridge.org/core/books/e...

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...

We keep saying someone needs to apply the methodology to London...

Mark the Grey

My latest article is out in Rural History on firstview!
A case study of a set of mills in Bovey Tracey, Devon, that exemplifies the economic, political, and customary disputes surrounding early modern milling
#earlymodern #millhistory
www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Will the Wise at it again

New version of the WP by @patrickwallis.bsky.social @aucointaylor.bsky.social @markhailwood.bsky.social
@justincolson.bsky.social
@jwhittle.bsky.social and David Chilosi! doi.org/10.17863/CAM...

The Oldest Firm: Institutional Football in Medieval Scotland It’s a historic time for Scottish football: the men’s national team has qualified for the World Cup, ending a near three-decade drought. Scotland’s rugby (football) team has a cha…

🚨NEW Blogpost🚨

We all know about the #OldFirm. But what's the 'oldest firm' in the history of Scottish #football?
⚽🏉
The answer takes us back to #medieval and #earlymodern St Andrews, where university and city invested in an unlawful game.
👇
ludicrushistories.wordpress.com/2026/03/12/t...

Is it ok to get your own made if you win a prize? I vote yes.

Very well deserved! You'll need a trophy cabinet soon for all these prizes...

We are delighted to announce the winner of the WHN Book Prize. The judges chose Female Servants in Early Modern England by @charmianmansell.bsky.social

The highly readable & engaging book, interrogates long-standing assumptions about the domesticity & constraints of women’s lives in service.

Thanks Kevin!

Is Walking Research? A Methodological Ramble Mark HailwoodI needed to try something to get me writing again. Blessed with a period of research leave to resume work on my book – Everyday Life in the Seventeenth Century English Village &#…

'I would set off, with some sense of what I might be looking for, and see what I stumbled across...'

Is going for a walk a valid methodology for a historian? And if so, how much theory do you need to read before you start?

Some thoughts in my latest blog post:
manyheadedmonster.com/2026/02/10/i...

Boydell are doing a sale on paperbacks, so you can get *Alehouses and Good Fellowship in Early Modern England* for about £16, with the code LOVE40.

If you like history, and pubs, and discounted paperbacks, it could be your thing...

boydellandbrewer.com/book/alehous...

Yes, I read and very much enjoyed your posts! I live in Devon, so that was an added layer of interest. Would be happy to discuss further sometime!

Screenshot of the first page of Violent Waters book.

Cover of 'Violent Waters: Environmental Politics in Early Modern England' by Elly Robson Dezateux

*Violent Waters: Environmental Politics in Early Modern England*

An important new book from @ellydezateux.bsky.social shows 'how environments were politically constructed and contested, and how environmental concerns inflected politics'. 🗃️

Cambridge UP: www.cambridge.org/core/books/v...

This post, the dicussion arising from it, and the blog post it links to, are well worth a read on #OnePlaceWednesday!

#WomensWork

Great, thanks. Makes me think of William Cronon's 'The Trouble with Wilderness' in an American context. I briefly encountered Tom as a lecturer when I was at UEA doing my first degree...

I really like that abandoned industrial remains idea. Plenty of those to be seen too when walking in supposedly 'unspoilt' or 'natural' rural landscapes of course...

Our ground is pasture land during the winter, and we only get it back for the summer. It doesn't make for a great outfield.

What came out from the walk was that it made me think more about the relationship between the academic literature, local history, my own experiences growing up, and what the landscape looks like now.

[I think this is partly because of the introduction of a tidal mill in the 18thC, which made the valley floor much wetter and perhaps not suitable for much pasture, and that was reflected in what earlier historians had written] In the 17thC and earlier though it was indeed a valued resource.

Thanks Adam. It was interesting because I knew the importance of/contest over pasture land in the period from the literature. But I also had perceptions based on living in Portishead, and on its own history books (from late 18thC and early 20thC) which made me perceive of it is 'marginal' marshland

Haha! But what about the theory question...?

Thanks Lauren. I was/am wary of historians getting excited about approaches to research because we find them enjoyable. I'd say we need to be extra careful to think critically about their value in such cases so we don't just fetishise our personal enthusiasms. I'll be interested to read your piece!

Is Walking Research? A Methodological Ramble Mark HailwoodI needed to try something to get me writing again. Blessed with a period of research leave to resume work on my book – Everyday Life in the Seventeenth Century English Village &#…

'I would set off, with some sense of what I might be looking for, and see what I stumbled across...'

Is going for a walk a valid methodology for a historian? And if so, how much theory do you need to read before you start?

Some thoughts in my latest blog post:
manyheadedmonster.com/2026/02/10/i...