Non sic gesta scias, sed cuncta geri potuisse
Among the projects I’ve been working on recently is an introduction to Carolingian diplomacy for an edited volume on late antique diplomacy (the publication date is a long way off so more details closer to then). Writing for an audience interested in diplomacy from this period, but unfamiliar with the Carolingians has been a useful … Continue reading What’s Distinctive About Carolingian Diplomacy?
Today on the blog, the arrival of The Carolingian South, published by Manchester University Press, edited by myself and the inimitable Graeme Ward, and featuring a wonderful collection of contributions, including one from The Historian’s Sketchpad’s very own Fraser McNair. This is something I’ve been working on for a while, so I’m absolutely delighted that … Continue reading Everyone’s Name in…
Rosamond McKitterick died on Saturday 13th June 2026. As a sentence, that’s easy to write and impossible to believe. The idea that anyone as vivid, as curious, and as joyful as Rosamond could no longer be seems like a bad joke. The idea of Cambridge, the city and the university that she loved her entire … Continue reading A Scholarly and a Moral Education: Remembering Rosamond McKitterick
In the year 756 ʿAbd al-Rahman ibn Muʿawiya entered the city of Córdoba and declared himself to be the new emir. It would take him thirty years of fighting to make it reality, but historians tend to mark this moment as the beginning of Umayyad rule in al-Andalus. This was in opposition to the ʿAbbasids … Continue reading Fihrid Fancies: Notes on a Failed Dynasty
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 the death of Duke Henry of Burgundy in 1002 was wrong. Since then, I have written these thoughts up into an article, … Continue reading Name in Print XIX
As a general rule, if what an official diplomatic document is saying is at all interesting, something has gone horribly wrong. The paperwork that people can actually check is supposed to be sufficiently soporific that it could double as an anaesthetic. The good stuff is shared behind closed doors, or conveyed through inference and juxtaposition. … Continue reading Quickly Fading Glory: Nicholas…
…Scholars and professional researchers, on the other hand, have to actually make a considerable effort to remain so ignorant. David Graeber and David Wengrow, The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity (New York, 2021), p. 147. Of the many sins of scholars, pedantry and defensiveness are among the most common. The first needs … Continue reading A Pedant Revolts: The Dawn of Everything and…
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that I have been thinking about the politics of the Caliphate in the late ninth century, with a particular focus on relations between the ʿAbbasids in Baghdad and the various military dynasties that had taken power in outlying provinces, including the Saffarids in Khurasan and the Samanids … Continue reading (Sam’s) Name in Print V: The Caliph and the…
Empires transform the populations they rule, binding them into a changed order with new patterns of power and ways of thinking, connecting them to a wider world. One of the things that makes that of the Carolingians so interesting is the extent to which that transformation was mandated from the centre. Charlemagne and his successors … Continue reading Saxon Story: An Anonymous Petition to Louis…
In his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, foe of the blog Edward Gibbon (d. 1794) began discussing Charlemagne by observing that ‘The appellation of great has been often bestowed, and sometimes deserved.’ It’s safe to say that the English historian’s perspective of the emperor was decidedly mixed. Reminding the reader of his mastery … Continue reading Saxon Sins: Why Charlemagne did not Start…