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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 01/10/2026

Well...the 'wulf' is out of the bag. Professor Daniel Wakelin and I were the Middle English consultants for Robert Eggers' upcoming film Werwulf, in UK theatres on January 1st 2027!

An image of a screenshot from a webpage from IGN that reads 'Eggers did copious amounts of research on England in the 13th century for the screenplay, he co-wrote with his The Northman collaborator, Sjón. The film’s dialogue is in Middle English, although it’s been altered by dialect coach William Conacher to make it more comprehensible for the modern ear. Eggers also worked with two Middle English scholars at Oxford University, Eleanor Baker and Daniel Wakelin, who helped make the dialogue more period accurate.'

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 28/09/2026

And the second essay in CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW is out! Thanks to @realmandeville.bsky.social for ‘The Middle Ages as Creative Topic’, check it out! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Artwork by Kristen Haas Curtis for Creating the Medieval Now, special issue of the journal Public Humanities

The Middle Ages as Creative Topic, essay by Anthony Bale

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Tim Gaedke @timgaedke.com · 26/09/2026

talent is a lie

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 26/09/2026

I can't wait any longer, it's Pottsfield for me from here on out.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

First you must forge and consume the cinnamon bun. Then you will become the cinnamon bun.

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The Guild of Medievalist Makers @guildmedmak.bsky.social · 25/09/2026

Did you miss the recent Gender and Medieval Studies 2027 conference on the theme of Gender and Creativity? Don't worry, @drlauravarnam.bsky.social has written a blog post all about it! It was fantastic to see so many Guild members represented at this fantastic conference. Read below👇

guildmedmak.com

The Guild at the Gender & Creativity conference in Oxford — The Guild of Medievalist Makers

The Guild of Medievalist Makers at the GMS Conference in Oxford, September 2026.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 22/09/2026

There's a cool display by the Boldiean Bibliographical Press at the @bodleian.ox.ac.uk Weston shop. Treated myself to the RESISTANCE IS FERTILE figgy print to add to Taped-up Corner.

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Delighted that the first essay in CREATING THE MEDIEVAL NOW, a special issue of Public Humanities, ed by me & Eleanor Barraclough, is now available! Check out @thecelticist.bsky.social brilliant essay ‘De Ira’ & bookmark this page for further essays this autumn! www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Special issue of Public Humanities journal on Creating the Medieval with artwork by Kristen Haas Curtis

Abstract for Creating the Medieval Now special issue: essays by medievalists who are also creative practitioners on how their practice operates as their mode of scholarship.

Abstract for Elizabeth Boyle’s essay De Ira

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

There are three things in Oxford that I credit with holding the threads of me together: 1. The displays of the florists in the covered market 2. Seeing the fruit and veg at Gloucester Green market 3. The teenagers who fish in Osney stream, who I would die for

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

@robertculshaw.bsky.social and I wanted to see what we'd look like if we were a Victorian couple who subsequently disappeared in unexplained and perhaps occult circumstances, so had our photos taken on a camera from the 1860s.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 12/09/2026

Made my annual pilgrimage to Summertown to have a coffee and a pastry, and then see the Society of Wood Engravers exhibition at the North Wall. Inspiring as ever, with lots of interesting subjects (nature and rural life, yes, but also the RNLI, a tattered St George's flag, and Sandero Luminoso).

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

I printed a briny briny monster-mother this weekend for #GMS2026 Gender and Creativity (@drlauravarnam.bsky.social at the helm)! I used a baren for each block hence the texture on the background, but let's be generous and say it's deliberately like that.

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Dr Sian Witherden @sianwitherden.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

I’m pleased to share that records for parish churches and chapels are now available on Medieval Libraries of Great Britain - mlgb.bodleian.ox.ac.uk #provenance #manuscripts @bodleian.ox.ac.uk

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The Guild of Medievalist Makers @guildmedmak.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Heading back to school, the office, your desk, or your sketchbook? Why not join us for our next Making Space session, where you can work with fellow creative-critical medievalists on YOUR project, or simply carve out time to explore! 📆Fri 18 September 🕐5:30pm-7:00pm (BST) 💻Online

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

EXCELLENT, now let's do it for Lincoln, Dundee, Glasgow, Hertforshire, Northumbria and the reems of other institutions currently being butchered in various cruel and creative ways across the UK.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

If you would like to be thoroughly uplifted by the commitment, creativity, and community-mindedness of undergraduates towards medieval literature, may I recommend this blogpost by and about Mearcstapan, who are boundary-stepping through the fens of university study with vim and vigour.

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Sophie Bacchus-Waterman @sophiebwaterman.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Only 10 tickets left! Sign up quickly, we have a great study day lined up with several manuscripts on display and a series of speakers discussing women book owners and producers in early modern England and Scotland 📚

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

I'm pretty staid with my use of blackberries in cooking but I've pushed the boat out by making some blackberry ketchup/bbq sauce (I put ketchup on the labels because ketchup is a good word. Ketchup). I followed the recipe by 'Foraged by Fern' with a bit of artistic license for missing ingredients.

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Dr David Rundle @drdavidrundle.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Tell me what you know about the literary culture of medieval Guernsey, then read this article with some exciting #manuscript #fragment news. What has made this such fun is collaborating with Guernsey's archivists and the ever-excellent @tamarajatkin.bsky.social : www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026...

theguardian.com

Manuscript fragments hiding in plain sight shed light on medieval Guernsey’s literary life

Researchers say texts from 12th to 15th centuries ‘hint at a culture which has not even been imagined’

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Tamara Atkin @tamarajatkin.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

I was first contacted by Callum at the Island Archives in 2024, and it feels like barely a month goes by without a new discovery! Shout out not only to him and @drdavidrundle.bsky.social but also J.R Mattison, with whom I’ve been writing about the Griselda fragment. Excellent collaborators all!

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 23/08/2026

Another product to add to the apothecary of olfactory medievalisms / early modernisms: the new Lush 'Plague Doctor' bath bomb (marketed as 'ideal for a touch of medieval flair')

A black and gold bath bomb in the shape of a plague doctor's mask with purple fizzing bubbles

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 22/08/2026

I've laboured so long on alliterative lines, And translated troublesome, treacherous terms, Whilst wrangling rage inducing end-rhymes, That wriggle and wander and writhe like worms.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

I finished Makenna Goodman's 'Helen of Nowhere' the other evening. There was a lot going in this little book - some of which I think really worked (I was sincerely not expecting the ending). I hope it spawns a raft of novels which play with nature writ-ing/ers, preferably in a sinister way.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 19/08/2026

Whenever a cataloguer describes a medieval manuscript's illustrations as 'crude' I think they should be forced to submit a sample of their own work for comparison. Its only fair.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Fantastic news for all who worship at the Flynn altar.

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Dr Alison Ray @liber-ray.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

I’m thrilled to be taking part in this year’s amazing @sims-mss.bsky.social mss online lecture series to share my work on the pecia system and university book production! 🤗📜🎉 www.library.upenn.edu/sims/event-s...

library.upenn.edu

The Pecia System and the Medieval University Book Trade, ca. 1200-1340

Alison Ray (Royal Irish Academy Library) explores how medieval manuscripts were mass-produced at universities in the thirteenth century at low cost for members of the academic milieu.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 11/08/2026

What if, rather than Plath's fig-tree metaphor for choice paralysis, we instead adopted the medlar as our vehicle. The medlar sweetens ('blets') with frost or longer storage. I want to blet my thoughts in hardship and idleness. Let me blet.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

There are so many things we describe as 'timeless' that are full of time - they are timefull. They are chocked to the gills with time. They are ABOUT time.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 08/08/2026

Doing some proper weekending; made an almond and rhubarb cake.

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Francesca Brooks @francescabrooks.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

Wonderful to see this collection - 'Beyond Medieval Archives: rethinking the medieval archive through creative & critical practice' - which I've edited with Carl Kears, up on the @uclpress.bsky.social website & with a pub. date! You can learn more about the chapters: uclpress.co.uk/book/beyond-...

uclpress.co.uk

Beyond Medieval Archives

Beyond Medieval Archives hopes to open the field of medieval studies to more diverse, dynamic and innovative forms of creativity, criticism, publication and collective action in response to the resona...

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Sophie Bacchus-Waterman @sophiebwaterman.bsky.social · 06/08/2026

I had a wonderful time this morning at @lmhoxford.bsky.social, giving a talk on my day job of digitizing special collections for the Secret Lives of Books Summer School 📖

Photo of the entrance of Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Does anyone have any reading recommendations for creative-critical practice in book history (both terms broadly conceived, as they can only be)? Very accepting of the 're-'s (remaking etc) but also interested in other approaches.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

Special collections and special cats (Isambard) at Lady Margaret Hall.

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

#NCS2026 was epic! ✨ (As was my journey home- two taxis, a train, a coach, a bus & a plane!!). Now to decide where to put all my @hellomizk.bsky.social merch!! We’re very grateful that @guildmedmak.bsky.social had an official presence at the Congress & we look forward to 2028!

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Picked flowers at the flower picking farm.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Today we typeset and printed a sonnet at the Bodleian Bibliographic Press. We were supposted to correct the setting after a first print, but the students became attached to their accidents so we printed lots of (perfectly) faulty ones.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Today I had the option of working on my own (disgusting, evil, bad) writing for an hour OR taking part in my students' early modern letterlocking seminar. Guess which one won out. All credit to letterlocking afficionado and session leader Dr Daniel Starza Smith (and his bespoke LMH seal stamp).

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Hadas Weiss @hadas.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

me after writing "to which I turn next"

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Its week 2 of the 'Secret Lives of Books' summer school and we went to @ballioloxford.bsky.social 's Historic Collections Centre to see a fantastic selection of early modern books, thanks to Naomi Tiley. There were a pleasing quantity books about fish, and a page marker secured with a pin.

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 25/07/2026

Have you tried putting headphones on and blasting Fleet Floxes' 'Helplessness Blues'? I've found that helps.

I was raised up believing I was somehow unique
Like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see
And now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be
A functioning cog in some great machinery serving something beyond me

But I don't, I don't know what that will be
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

What's my name, what's my station? Oh, just tell me what I should do
I don't need to be kind to the armies of night that would do such injustice to you
Or bow down and be grateful and say, "Sure, take all that you see"
To the men who move only in dimly-lit halls and determine my future for me

And I don't, I don't know who to believe
I'll get back to you someday soon you will see

If I know only one thing, it's that everything that I see
Of the world outside is so inconceivable often I barely can speak
Yeah I'm tongue-tied and dizzy and I can't keep it to myself
What good is it to sing helplessness blues, why should I wait for anyone else?

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

No summer school on book history would be complete without a pigment and illumination workshop from the outstanding @saracharles.bsky.social! The students absolutely LOVED it - look at their beautiful initials!

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

The crossover event of the summer! @robertculshaw.bsky.social had me join his ICU team day to give a workshop on 'Caring Intensively in Medieval English Writings', featuring the charm against a wen, a recipe for curing constipation, and Margery Kempe.

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Dr Laura Varnam @drlauravarnam.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

🚨General registration is now open for the Gender & Medieval Studies conference on Gender & Creativity in Oxford in Sept! We have an amazing line up of speakers, so please register asap to avoid disappointment! (Numbers are limited!). Link via GMS website medievalgender.co.uk/2026-oxford/

Gender and Medieval Studies conf programme

Gender & Medieval Studies conference programme

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

Today was the first day of the 3-week summer school I'm convening at LMH: 'The Secret Lives of Books: Parchment, Printing Presses, and Paperbacks'. What better way to start our medieval book history week than a lecture from @drdavidrundle.bsky.social, and Merton mss with @juliawalworth.bsky.social

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Dr Eleanor Baker @eleanormaybaker.bsky.social · 19/07/2026

Cash poor, preserves rich (all made by my mum).

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