Tim Nelson

📢 LAST CHANCE! 📢 Our 2026 Call for Papers ends TONIGHT, so do not delay! Please send all final submissions to memsfestival@kent.ac.uk by 11:59pm to be considered for this year’s programme. We’d be thrilled to have you join us!

📢 One month left! We’re re-advertising our CFP for Networks in Old Norse Literature (Waters & Dell’Aquila). 📝 Abstracts (300–400 words) due May 1, 2026 📄 Full papers due Dec 1 Interdisciplinary, collaborative, and dialogic by design. 🔗 shorturl.at/wbnEe

The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA invites you to our writing community pilot, Writing Like Monks and Nuns. Attendees will be entered in a drawing to win a free year of MAA membership. Registration link: tinyurl.com/4wvh3c39

@AChillGhost Agree with Conwy but Caernarfon is a close second for me.

@themedieval_tim Mmm touch. It we bend the definition of castle a little bit, Dinas Emrys, otherwise Conwy

Can’t overstate how many castles are in North Wales. Absolutely nothing to do there besides hike and go to castles. Maybe two towns worth the name, nearest city is 2.5 hours by train and it’s Manchester, had to take an hour train each way to go the movies, happiest I’ve ever been

Vellichor

Codex Gigas, also known as Devil's Bible, a medieval illuminated manuscript, created in the Benedictine monastery of Podlažice in Bohemia, now a region in the modern-day Czech Republic. It is spanning 92cm in length and weighing 74.8kg, Codex Gigas is composed of 310 leaves of vellum claimed to be made from skins of 160 donkeys or calfskins. It is largest medieval manuscript in world written in 13th Century AD. Book seems to be simultaneously a Bible, a grimoire, a historical text, and guide to healing. It is also only Bible that contains an illumination of Devil. Even more mysterious is that this book was written by a single hand. Creation of this would have taken one man decades to complete. According to legend, Codex was created by Herman the Recluse, a Benedictine monk who lived in monastery of Podlažice near Chrudim in (modern Czech Republic) during 13th Century. Herman broke his monastic vows and was sentenced to immurement by being walled up alive. He would be released upon completing a book that encapsulated all earthly knowledge, a feat that would have taken many years to complete. The practice of immuring nuns or monks was usually reserved for those who broke a vow of chastity, with such examples being described in historical accounts during 17th Century AD. Another version of the legend describes how Herman was walled up and left to die from starvation or dehydration, but pleading with the Abbot, he was granted one year to complete the works. As midnight of the last night of the year approached, Herman realised the impossible task before him, so he made a special prayer, not addressed to God but to fallen archangel Lucifer, asking him to help him finish book in exchange for his soul. Devil completed manuscript and monk added devil's picture out of gratitude for his aid. According to some sources, Herman drew the devil’s portrait on page 577 of his manuscript in gratitude, shown as a squatting horned creature with red horns, a green face, two tongues and clawed arms outstretched. The doubling of tongues evokes negative associations with serpents (which have forked tongues), a metaphoric reference to dishonest human beings. Codex is the largest extant medieval illuminated manuscript in the world, containing complete Vulgate Bible, as well as other popular works, all written in Latin. Between Old and New Testaments are a selection of other popular medieval reference works: Josephus’s Antiquities of the Jews and De bello iudaico, Isidore of Seville’s encyclopaedia Etymologiae, the chronicle of Cosmas of Prague and numerous medical works. It is also speculated that inscription of various exorcism spells is monk trying to exorcise devil out by himself. Monastery was destroyed some time in 15th Century AD, during Hussite Revolution. Records in codex end in year 1222 AD. Shortly after it was written; over the centuries, Codex passed hands between Cistercian monks of the Sedlec Monastery, Benedictine monastery in Břevnov, as it was pawned by Benedictines to Cistercian monks of Sedlec Monastery where it remained for 70 years. Benedictine monastery in Břevnov reclaimed bible around end of 13th Century AD. From 1477-1593 AD, it was kept in library of a monastery in Broumov until it was taken to Prague in 1594 AD, to form a part of collections of Emperor Rudolf II. At end of Thirty Years' War in 1648 AD, entire collection of books of Rudolph II, including Codex, was taken as war booty by Swedish army. Since 1649 AD, manuscript is in Swedish Royal Library in Stockholm. #archaeohistories

obsessed with pope leo’s reaction when the vatican librarian explains it’s safer to touch manuscripts with bare hands rather than gloves

Beware the Negation Field

the ideal classics paper has at least 75 footnotes, one of which is more than 75% of the page, and no fewer than three of which are wholly dedicated to damning your nemeses with faint praise

The ideal philosophy paper has 6 footnotes, all of which are short, two of which are just jokes.

HMO, a prequel about these two. They know each other’s tricks too well. There’s absolutely prior magical academia beef here.

What have you done?

EXTENSION Call for Papers: Thalassocracy and the Power of the Sea Graduate Student Conference Classics Department at the the Graduate Center, CUNY #ClassicsGC #HumanitiesGC The City University of New York #ClassicsTwitter

We're hiring in black and/or latino queer studies and have extended the app deadline to 1/5. The terms are sweeter than HR will permit us to disclose in the ad; feel free to get in touch with me with any questions. Thanks for helping to spread the word! jobs.chronicle.com/job/37909134/a…

Recipes should include photos of the mess you have to clean up after cooking.

Pre-PhD: I have a question Mid-PhD: I have a headache

If everyone used footnotes instead of endnotes