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Helen Gittos

@helengittos.bsky.social
3.1K followers 591 following 1.5K posts

Associate Professor of Medieval History, University of Oxford Chair, Family Expert Reference Group, National Maternity & Neonatal Taskforce (I can't read private messages here.)

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Reposted by Helen Gittos
Hetan Shah @hetanshah.bsky.social · 11h
Normalise offence, run an analogue class without GenAI, and don’t self censor. Good provocations from @audreytruschke.bsky.social for the humanities classroom www.iias.asia/the-newslett...
iias.asia
Dangerous Classrooms: Practical Suggestions for Defending the Humanities | IIAS
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 16h
They are available from the cathedral shop: www.canterbury-cathedral.org/shop/journey...
canterbury-cathedral.org
Journey to Thomas: Pilgrimage and Healing in Window nIII | Canterbury Cathedral
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 16h
This time on window North3 - the one that was loaned to the BM's Becket exhibition. A model of scholarly communication... and only a tenner.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 16h
In 2022, Rachel Koopmans published a glossy, highly-illustrated booklet on her research into one of the Becket miracle windows in Canterbury. It's a masterpiece of academic communication: clear, exciting, undumbed-down, shown as much as told. Now she & Leonie Seliger have produced another...
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 16h
It's so good this is now out. The first full English translation of one of the most important sources on Thomas Becket. 275 miracle stories, all said to have happened in 1171-1173 - full of people, places and richly evocative details. boydellandbrewer.com/book/the-pas...
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Reposted by Helen Gittos
Canterbury Cathedral @cburycathedral.bsky.social · 05/02/2026
This #NationalStorytellingWeek, we have been sharing some of the incredible stories depicted in the stained glass of the Miracle Windows, as told by Dr Rachel Koopmans. This is the story of Richard of Stanley: youtu.be/62b7MlbDXcs?... © Chapter of Canterbury Cathedral | Videographer: Alex J Wright
youtu.be
Stories in the Miracle Windows: Richard of Stanley
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 17h
Becket lives! Or at least some events marking the 850th anniversary of his murder leave a digital legacy. Lectures @britishmuseum.bsky.social: youtube.com/playlist?lis... And @yorkuniversity.bsky.social Centre for Christianity & Culture's Becket Story project www.thebecketstory.org.uk/about
thebecketstory.org.uk
About the project
This online resource has been created by the Centre for the Study of Christianity and Culture at the University of York, and generously funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and The
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Reposted by Helen Gittos
Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 21h
And the icing on the cake: a podcast interview with Ana de Oliveira Dias, for the 'behind-the-scenes' take on her article in this issue. rss.com/podcasts/ear...
rss.com
Whose bones are these? Labelling relics in early medieval Francia | Early Medieval Europe
Everyone knows the importance of relics for early medieval Christianity.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 22h
And with references to this interesting collection. Nice to see a short century for once! books.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/propylaeum/c...
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Reposted by Helen Gittos
Charles West @pseudo-isidore.bsky.social · 22h
Hot off the press - the latest issue of "Early Medieval Europe"! 34.4 includes Marcelo Candido da Silva on numbers in Carolingian annals.... (£) onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Accounting for crises in Carolingian annals
This article examines the ways in which crises were recorded and conceptualized in Carolingian annals, with particular attention to the selective use of numerical information. Rather than treating re...
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 22h
With thanks to @davidpetts1.bsky.social for alerting me.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 22h
'scholarship faces... chilling threats from a philistine political climate, an academic world over-run by managerialism & the proliferation of absurdities & nastiness [in the] media. It is a waste of everyone’s time & energy to tilt at windmills.' Hines on Higham: doi.org/10.1017/S000...
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John Vigar FSA @johnevigar.bsky.social · 23h
Throwback to 1978 when I surveyed the 1180 Great Drain of Canterbury Cathedral.
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Reposted by Helen Gittos
Vauhini Vara @vauhinivara.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Thank you, @lutzfernandez.bsky.social — I’ve been citing/sharing your incredible Google doc for educators, on “resisting AI mania,” everywhere I go, meanwhile.
docs.google.com
Resisting School AI Mania Help Sheet
Help Sheet: Resisting AI Mania in Schools K-12 educators are under pressure to use—and have students use—a wide range of AI tools. (“AI” is used loosely here, as it is by many purveyors and boosters....
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
'The archaeological periods of advance do not coincide closely with those of the ruling houses, which implies that there are other actors driving transitions, other members of the population who have agency, among them farmers, merchants, potters and minor tenants.'
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
This is such a good collection! boydellandbrewer.com/book/conques...
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
Thanks. Yes, that's one I've also been using recently.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
That's the 'wormholes' essay isn't it; I love that piece.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
bsky.app/profile/whit...
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Reposted by Helen Gittos
Karen Gregory @karengregory.bsky.social · 12/10/2026
"Pointing to estimates of about 30,000 job losses in the past three years..." www.ft.com/content/ded7...
ft.com
UK universities cut jobs, research and teaching amid squeeze in overseas students
‘Very sharp downturn’ in enrolments risks hitting economic innovation and academic pipeline, lobby group says
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
This is helpful too.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
This is the chapter.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
Just remembered this very recent chapter by @br00kes.bsky.social - just the kind of thing!
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
I haven't used this before; perhaps I could give this a go. Baker, J., & @br00kes.bsky.social (2015). Identifying outdoor assembly sites in early medieval England. Journal of Field Archaeology, 40(1), 3–21. www.jstor.org/stable/24408...
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
I know lots of brilliant work by Andrew Reynolds, Sarah Semple, Stuart Brookes and others. What I'm looking for is something like a chapter on the archaeology of governance for historians. Thoughts very welcome please!
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
I'm struggling again to find something clear to give 1st & 2nd yr students on the archaeology of law & governance in late Anglo-Saxon England - you know, pictures of meeting sites, something that conveys how much we know from landscape archaeology about how & where government happened. Suggestions?
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 11/10/2026
No! I won't. What ya doing, Wiley?
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
What a book cover! unipress.dk/udgivelser/v...
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
This one is specially for @seaxeducation.bsky.social ...
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
'But what would, say, the German court have thought, full of snobbish aristocrats from old families as it was, to find an authoritative representative from northern Italy’s biggest city called Shit-pesto?' Chris! I do so wish we had better words to describe how much academic colleagues mean to us.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 10/10/2026
I've woken up still reeling. So many stories of personal kindness being told. When I finally got a permanent job, he, who I hardly knew then, and who had been one of the people who didn't appoint me a few years earlier😉, strode across an Oxford seminar room to give me a big bear hug. Oh, Chris.
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Reposted by Helen Gittos
Ruth Siddall @pavementgeology.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Could this be the most important building in London this century? I think so! It’s a return to using stone structurally to build a 10 storey tower and hugely reducing the carbon impact of building. By Groupwork and Webb Yates engineers, Petra Heights on Finchley Road is monumental in so many ways 🧵
A view of the Finchley Road. A parade of shops housed in an early 20th Century terrace is on the left and next to these is a block composed of two towers constructed in a square grid pattern using beams of red coloured stone. Next to this spectacular building is a boring ‘council architect’ late 29th century residential block.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
Hell, yes.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
What ya doing @jstor.bsky.social?
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
I don't think many of our colleagues would defend that; it's more that it can feel hard to fight the providers. But it's quite simple to stop subscribing...
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
'But most of all I am worried about AI's impact on learning... We need people who are tough enough to fight intellectually in the arena of the mind & to fight, in real time, what is being done to us, what freedoms are being encroached upon...' www.youtube.com/shorts/v0hh9...
youtube.com
AI's greasy little voice
YouTube video by The New Society
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
My god this is getting tough. Proquest gives an automatic AI-generated summary for a @historytoday.com article. So I can't put that on a reading list then... Why are we paying for this? Why are we not rebelling better?
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Reposted by Helen Gittos
IHR Earlier Middle Ages Seminar @earliermiddleages.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
We're pleased to present the Earlier Middle Ages seminar schedule for this autumn! Event registration pages will very shortly be available on the IHR website. And please note that no sign-up is required for this week's David Wilson lecture with Sarah Semple (info: www.ucl.ac.uk/social-histo...).
The schedule of seminars for the IHR Earlier Middle Ages seminar, autumn 2026.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
www.londonmuseum.org.uk/smithfield/
londonmuseum.org.uk
London Museum
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 05/10/2026
www.thetimes.com/uk/history/a...
thetimes.com
From refuse to riches: ancient rubbish brings Roman London to life
Detritus from Londinium, spanning a toddler’s milk bottle to an adult’s writing tablet, will feature in a multimedia show at the London Museum next spring
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 04/10/2026
Let's hope the catalogue of this will be formatted like the AS Kingdoms one!
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Ooo. That sounds cool. Would be well up for a reading list swap... Thanks so much for all these suggestions Leonie. Very much appreciated.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Thank you! Yes, I was thinking secondary... but primary suggestions good too @kateweikert.bsky.social 😁
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Thought it might be a way to smuggle myself in too :)
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Gah.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Leonie: if you had students who were going to do a single week on the Normans this coming term - as part of a longer chronological course - what might be among the feistiest, tastiest things you might set them to read? Am thinking esp on the Tapestry itself for this year.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
I've just applied for group tickets for the BM; that process at least was easy enough! We'll see, eh.
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 03/10/2026
Coming soon to @britishlibrary.bsky.social - Conquest: The Making of Norman England 1 Oct 2027 - 27 Feb 2028 events.bl.uk/exhibitions/...
events.bl.uk
Conquest: The Making of Norman England | British Library
Beyond the battlefield lies a story of ambition, upheaval and reinvention. Spanning the generations before and after 1066, this exhibition traces the impac
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Helen Gittos @helengittos.bsky.social · 02/10/2026
Yet it was clear to me, whose job this is not, just from reading Board papers and talking to people. www.itv.com/news/meridia... www.hsj.co.uk/quality-and-...
hsj.co.uk
CEO ‘shocked’ by latest maternity findings
An acting chief executive has said it was "quite shocking" to find his trust had "let so many people down" on maternity care, contrary to assurances given to the board.
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