Photo of Rosamond McKitterick, taken by the author on 1 February 2020 overlooking the Forum at Rome. Rosamond McKitterick died on Saturday 13th June 2026. As a sentence, that’s easy to write and im…

Photo of Rosamond McKitterick, taken by the author on 1 February 2020 overlooking the Forum at Rome. Rosamond McKitterick died on Saturday 13th June 2026. As a sentence, that’s easy to write and im…

Those of you who have been following the blog for a few years might remember about eighteen months ago, when I posted something saying that the general understanding of the succession crisis after …

Man, this takes me back. The last time I thought a lot about the Peace of God, it was 2018, the UK was still in the EU, nobody knew what a COVID was, I was living in Tübingen (for the first time), …

One of the big questions around the history of early medieval Frisia is when the region was conquered by the Franks.[1] Or at least, that’s one of the big questions for me. It’s not a question anyo…

Spoilers for the first three Foundation books below. And the Pirenne thesis, I guess. Exactly when and how Isaac Asimov (c.1920-1992) encountered Henri Pirenne (1862-1935) is unknown. That the Amer…

It is with deep sadness that the Master and Fellows of St Peter’s College share news of the death of Professor Stephen Baxter.

Some articles are not written from the most noble of motives. When dealing with the accession of the Capetians, there are a few old chestnuts which, simply, get on my nerves. I have already complai…

So I discovered something really cool but also quite frustrating, not least because although it’s been noticed by a few people before as far as I can tell I’m the only one whose ever thought it not…

This one is a little late to the party, although in my defence that’s because it’s one of the oddest publication experiences I’ve ever had. Still, I am pleased to announce that my…

Dr Rebecca Merkelbach reflects on her keynote speech at the most recent Saga Conference. Held every three years, Saga Con is the most important meeting of Old Norse scholars, bringing together acad…

Since the beginning of June, I have managed to publish one main-line blog post. In that time, there have been four Charter A Week posts, but I wasn’t happy with at least a couple of them. And…

No. Well, fine, I suppose given I have compelled others to elaborate in similar situations I should put a bit more here. The Bayeux Tapestry is coming to the UK from Autumn next year, and with the …

Hello everyone, welcome back after a summer hiatus. If you’re wondering what happened, my editor gave me a deadline of June 30th to get the first half of my book manuscript in; I did it, but it was…

While in much of the world a PhD is the highest university degree one can achieve, in many European countries such as France, Germany and Italy there exists another, further, qualification, known a…

Texts from the early medieval world tend to be precious by default. Rarity makes diamonds of the most unlikely dross. Even a relatively well-documented period like the ninth century does not have e…

Once again we return to the vexed question of Carolingian political thought and its relationship to practice; and also existence. Last time we talked about this, I was worrying about the banality o…

Short and sweet this week. It’s not that often, in the early Middle Ages, that you get multiple authors working in their signature style in literary and diplomatic genres. Hincmar, I suppose, but i…

Not long ago, someone asked me for advice about applying to do a PhD in History and I hesitated. My internal deliberation had nothing to do with the abilities of the person I was talking to, who in…

You know, I thought it had been a while since I’d done a royal diploma for one of these things, and I was right. This is one of the problems with the way the preservation of documents changes betwe…

For various reasons, I’ve lately been thinking once more about the Carolingian palace. This hasn’t been as easy as I might have hoped, and a major part of the problem is that historians’ use of ter…

The ideological claims (and, one dares say) political success of the Breton rulers were never so expansive as in the second half of the ninth century and the first decade of the tenth. Under the du…

Since the start of April, I have been happily ensconced in the glorious Jugendstil offices of the Institute for Medieval Research (IMAFO) in the Austrian Academy of Sciences in Vienna, working with…

This one’s going to be short. There’s a lot else going on and I’m afraid, dear readers, that when that happens this blog is the first thing to get cut. So what you’re about to read was written on a…

The abbey of Saint-Florent de Saumur had what in the early eleventh century was the uncomfortable position of being almost exactly half-way between Fulk Nerra’s Angers and Odo II’s Tours, to say no…

Long before the phrase ‘Global Middle Ages’ had appeared on anyone’s horizon, historians of medieval Europe were fascinated by Japan. The world of feuding daimyos plotting in castles supported by h…