Reposted by Tom RobertsMark Williams @mrfw17thc.bsky.social · 12/08/2026It's real, and due out in March! 'Imaginative Pasts', which has been a joy to edit with Tracey Loughran, aims to reckon - and play - with the role of the imagination in historical research and writing. #skystorians #earlymodern manchesteruniversitypress.co.uk/9781526187154/ 1110634
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 13/08/2026Interesting to see a garden/herb garden being run alongside a bowling alley. I always assumed my Italian guy opened a bowling alley to replace the garden 🤔 110
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 07/08/2026A fun little find in the archive today. An invitation to the reception of Alexander II, the Emperor of *all the Russias*, at the Guildhall in May, 1874. 040
Reposted by Tom RobertsDaniel F Gosling @thegozfather.bsky.social · 01/08/2026Some very REQciting news. My Court of Requests pleadings (REQ 2/16-424) project is now complete. Over 28,000 items dating from c.1547-c.1625 (Edw VI to Jas I) now searchable online. Happy researching everyone 🙂 discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/browse/r/h/C...discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk 26934
Reposted by Tom RobertsNandini Das @rentravailer.bsky.social · 29/07/2026You can get the researcher away from research, but can't get the research away from the researcher. 🧵 182
Reposted by Tom RobertsJonathan Healey @jonathanhealey.bsky.social · 17/06/2026lavocedinewyork.com/en/people/20...lavocedinewyork.comItalian Historian Carlo Ginzburg, Pioneer of Microhistory, DiesItalian culture, history, and scholarship are poorer today with the passing of Carlo Ginzburg, the renowned Italian historian and essayist 072
Reposted by Tom RobertsDr Richard Asquith @richardasquith.bsky.social · 10/06/2026If you’re interested in medieval parish churches, their #art, #architecture, and #history, this year’s Harlaxton #Medieval Symposium may be for you! 📆 Residential booking deadline is 19th June. More info here: harlaxtonmedievalsymposium.org/harlaxton-me... #MedievalSky #Skystorians 0125
Reposted by Tom RobertsProf Tracey Hill @tracelarkhall.bsky.social · 02/06/2026Lovely peeps, exciting news! The inestimable @clairejowitt.bsky.social is giving a talk at Founders' Hall on 21st July: this is a great opportunity to visit my livery company hall and experience our warm hospitality. Cost is £70 for which you'll get a superb 3 course dinner and *all* the wine! 186
Reposted by Tom RobertsNandini Das @rentravailer.bsky.social · 28/05/2026It's publication day! This Little World begins with a sixteenth-century refugee writing from Norwich to his wife abroad. It ends in the aftermath of civil war and revolution, asking what belonging and identity might mean in a world shaped by migration, empire and violence. (1/4) 1614543
Reposted by Tom RobertsGuildhall Library @guildhalllibrary.bsky.social · 20/05/2026How to make committee minutes look stylish - some vivid marbling details of the John Bankes Charity Committee Minutes 1962-1980 of the Worshipful Company of Haberdashers. The combed marbling is achieved by dragging a comb through oil-based paints floating on water, onto which the paper was laid. 071
Reposted by Tom RobertsJohn Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 20/05/2026I'm in the new issue of @historytoday.com with a review of Penny Roberts's latest, an honest to god archival detective story which reconstructs sixteenth-century Huguenot networks from a bag of letters seized at the port of Dieppe. www.historytoday.com/archive/revi...historytoday.com‘Huguenot Networks’ by Penny Roberts review 33110
Reposted by Tom RobertsLauren Working @laurenworking.bsky.social · 20/05/2026Two weeks to go until this glittery object is out in the world @faberbooks.bsky.social! www.faber.co.uk/product/9780... If you want a sneak peek at some of what's inside, I've written a thread on 2 topics in the book: Arctic sealskin & South American silver 👇faber.co.ukA Golden World: How the Americas Transformed Renaissance EnglandA Golden World by Lauren Working is a glittering new history of how the Americas transformed early modern England. History books from Faber. 081
Reposted by Tom RobertsJohn Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 12/05/2026Very excited for the 2027 Society for Renaissance Studies conference, to be held in the city many are calling the Leeds of the south. 3388
Reposted by Tom RobertsProf Tracey Hill @tracelarkhall.bsky.social · 08/05/2026Writing about civic pageantry will never stop being a pleasure. Wranging PowerPoint slides, in contrast, 🤯 181
Reposted by Tom RobertsHannah K. Smyth 🍉 @smythh.bsky.social · 06/05/2026📣 Please share! The UCL Department of Information Studies is pleased to invite applications for the 2026 Widening Participation in Archives & Records Management Summer School from 6–9 July. www.ucl.ac.uk/arts-humanit...ucl.ac.ukWidening Participation in Archives and Records Management Summer SchoolDate: 6-9 July 2026 Time: 10am - 4pm Location: UCL Bloomsbury Campus 123
Reposted by Tom RobertsJohn Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 02/05/2026Mulling the editorial direction of Renaissance Studies, and thinking it might be time to open the journal up to articles by humanities scholars who have a very shaky grasp of how science works but fancy having a go 4798
Reposted by Tom RobertsMeryl Faiers @merylf.bsky.social · 21/04/2026My latest blogpost for the Kingswomen introduces Rebecca Edwards: she married star actor William Knell at 14, was widowed at 15, then married Shakespeare’s colleague, John Heminges. www.kingswomen.org/post/rebecca... #earlymodern #womenshistorykingswomen.orgRebecca Heminges (1571-1619)by Meryl Faiers, 20 April 2026Evidence of the lives of non-elite women is often fragmentary and frequently found in administrative records. The first stage of thinking about the experiences of someone... 3339
Reposted by Tom RobertsKathleen Commons @kabcommons.bsky.social · 31/03/2026Really pleased to share my (open access!) article on immigration control in early modern England, feat. rights-bearing subjects, rightsless migrants, and experiments in immigration control 39133
Reposted by Tom RobertsDr Miranda Fay Thomas (they/she) @drmirandafay.bsky.social · 29/03/2026Here’s the print reveal of my Spanish Tragedy linocut, where I’m genuinely surprised it worked. VERY satisfying! The carving is very fiddly and takes a long time, and while you’re in progress you think it’ll look terrible. Just another necessary lesson in trusting the process. 1215
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 29/03/2026This is great! I had a crack at the Thomas Nashe woodcut a while ago using a block of plywood. The end product looked just like the original after about 4 trillion impressions 010
Reposted by Tom RobertsJohn Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 27/03/2026Please do spread the word about the @srsrensoc.bsky.social Scholars of Colour MA Scholarship Awards -- two pots of £4,000 each, and an optional mentoring opportunity. I've very much enjoyed being a mentor to a fantastic scholar through this scheme! 02740
Reposted by Tom RobertsLondon Review of Books @lrb.co.uk · 23/03/2026On our Close Readings subscription podcast: Rosemary Hill and Matthew Davies, professor of urban history at Birkbeck, trace the story of London through the multiple invasions that took it from a field of ruins to a busy medieval capital. Listen to an extract: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/l...podcasts.apple.comLondon Revisited: The Medieval CapitalPodcast Episode · Close Readings · 23 March · 1h 29m 093
Reposted by Tom RobertsJohn McCafferty @jdmccafferty.bsky.social · 05/03/20265 Mar 1600: Reniaulme de Ascanius #London bookseller of Venetian origin buried St Ann Blackfriars #otd Leading importer of foreign books to #London who was permitted to bring in Catholic books for use by the learned. #Booktrade (Bashereyre, St Ann's yard, 2008) 093
Reposted by Tom RobertsJohn Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 26/02/2026Does anyone happen to have access to Brill's Italian Reformation Online resource? They've digitised this manuscript (the libro di memorie of Vincenzo Burlamachi) and I'd love to see it! primarysources.brillonline.com/browse/itali...primarysources.brillonline.comThe Italian Reformation Online — BrillThe Italian Reformation Online — Brill 024
Reposted by Tom RobertsTom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 25/02/2026Has anyone come across this woodcut before? It may have belonged to Abel Jeffes at some point but not entirely sure. EBBA isn't working for me so any help would be much appreciated! 135
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 25/02/2026Certainly could be, although the line work is still very clear so I don't think it would have seen much use. 110
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 25/02/2026(All context that would have been useful but I was too excited to explain myself properly). 100
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 25/02/2026Thanks, Liam. It looks early, but it comes from a single leaf of a text (A discourse of the miserable captivitie of an Englishman named Richard Hasleton) printed by Abel Jeffes in the 1590s. However, this leaf doesn't match the other surviving states, so it may be earlier or slightly later! 200
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 25/02/2026Has anyone come across this woodcut before? It may have belonged to Abel Jeffes at some point but not entirely sure. EBBA isn't working for me so any help would be much appreciated! 135
Reposted by Tom RobertsJohn Gallagher @earlymodernjohn.bsky.social · 20/11/2025I was writing the other day about a document that mentions the Antwerp-born Londoner Lodewijk Theeuws, but I hadn't realised that a claviorgan he built in 1579 still exists at the V&A, and that it's the earliest surviving keyboard instrument made in Britain. collections.vam.ac.uk/item/O60635/...collections.vam.ac.ukThe Theewes Claviorgan | Theewes, Lodewyk | V&A Explore The CollectionsClaviorgan, 1579, English, Lodewyk Theewes 2277
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 09/09/2025Thanks, John! His name is Stephen Frizonfield (?) and pops up around the 1590s, first as collector, then as constable. I'll DM the refs. 010
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 09/09/2025Looking forward to reading more. You probably already know that there was a Florentine constable of St Botolph w/o Bishopsgate in the late 1590s! 110
Reposted by Tom RobertsHannah K. Smyth 🍉 @smythh.bsky.social · 11/08/2025🔊 Very pleased our book about public history is out and gold open access: Public History in Global Perspective Inquiry, Exchange and Practice. @ciaranon.bsky.social @geolug.bsky.social @richardlegay.bsky.social tinyurl.com/mafs2wrxtinyurl.comPublic History in Global PerspectiveWhere should public history sit within the matrix of global, international, (trans-)national, and more local histories? Since its emergence in the 1970s, Public History has typically been read as comm... 1106
Reposted by Tom RobertsDaniel F Gosling @thegozfather.bsky.social · 01/08/2025Come and work with me! The National Archives are looking for an Early Modern Parliamentary Records Specialist. More details available via the link. www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cg...civilservicejobs.service.gov.ukQuick Check Needed 11320
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 27/07/2025Yes, I was thinking about ads pinned up on posts or something similar. Basically I'm looking at a whole group of landlords and tenants who don't seem to have any direct connection (church, livery company, etc.) 000
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 27/07/2025Both good questions. As for the first, this kind of ephemera tend not to survive (I'm thinking paper advertisements pinned to posts in the manner of playbills)... Second is a good shout -- I'll keep digging! 000
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 27/07/2025Almost certainly, but I'm wondering if there was a more formal way to advertise pre-newsbooks 🤔 100
Reposted by Tom RobertsDr Jacob H. Deacon ⚔️ @deaconjh.bsky.social · 24/07/2025'Masters of Defence: Fencers and Fencing in England, c. 1400-1600' Next Friday evening, at 7pm UK time, I’ll be talking about my research for the German Federation for Historical Fencing. You can join the talk here: (uni-trier.zoom-x.de/j/6650319538...) Meeting-ID: 665 0319 5383 Password: 4w2v9GN6 1257
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 05/07/2025I wrote my undergraduate dissertation on Robert Greene as the first literary celebrity. Can't say it went down that well. 100
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 02/07/2025Perhaps a silly question but does anyone know how landlords advertised rental properties in sixteenth-century London? 111
Tom Roberts @tchrob.bsky.social · 02/07/2025I've been away so very late to this but I can confirm that the Founders are a great bunch and the food/wine top-notch. 110
Reposted by Tom RobertsSpitalfields Life @thegentleauthor.bsky.social · 21/06/2025LAST CHANGE TO SAVE LIVERPOOL ST STATION FROM THE MONSTER BLOCK! Note the height of Grade II*-listed Great Eastern Hotel in front and observe that this pile is more than twice the height and it will block out all daylight from the concourse. shorturl.at/sByFe 21516
