Prof Ben Pohl
@benpohl.bsky.social
Professor of Medieval History, University of Bristol 📚 w/ Oxford Univ Press, Cambridge Univ Press, Boydell & Brewer, Schnell & Steiner, ARC Humanities Press; now writing ‘The Medieval Library: Using and Abusing Books in the Middle Ages’ for Reaktion Books
Pinned
Very happy to have signed the contract for my next book with @reaktionbooks.bsky.social! ✍️
Home sweet home ❄️🌞
December 25, 2025 at 1:57 PM
Home sweet home ❄️🌞
Civilisation = Deutsche Bahn ICE Bordbistro!
December 23, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Civilisation = Deutsche Bahn ICE Bordbistro!
That’s it, folks—see you in 2026! Look after yourselves, and after one another!
December 22, 2025 at 5:35 PM
That’s it, folks—see you in 2026! Look after yourselves, and after one another!
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway, oh no, this is the road to hell. (Drive safely, Chris!) #rip 😢 www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...
Chris Rea, rock and blues singer-songwriter, dies aged 74
Middlesbrough-born musician had hits with Driving Home for Christmas, On the Beach and The Road to Hell
www.theguardian.com
December 22, 2025 at 3:22 PM
This ain't no upwardly mobile freeway, oh no, this is the road to hell. (Drive safely, Chris!) #rip 😢 www.theguardian.com/music/2025/d...
Aaaaaaand breathe…. 😌 Anyone who dares to email me before the New Year shall be cursed—anathema maranatha!
December 22, 2025 at 10:22 AM
Aaaaaaand breathe…. 😌 Anyone who dares to email me before the New Year shall be cursed—anathema maranatha!
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
"AI is the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector and tech monopolists run amok. We will be excavating it for a generation or more."
This piece on AI by Cory Doctorow is spectactular.
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
This piece on AI by Cory Doctorow is spectactular.
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
December 9, 2025 at 2:58 PM
"AI is the asbestos in the walls of our technological society, stuffed there with wild abandon by a finance sector and tech monopolists run amok. We will be excavating it for a generation or more."
This piece on AI by Cory Doctorow is spectactular.
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
This piece on AI by Cory Doctorow is spectactular.
pluralistic.net/2025/12/05/p...
Driving where the streets have no names… guess he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for!
December 19, 2025 at 3:05 PM
Driving where the streets have no names… guess he still hasn’t found what he’s looking for!
This is an outrage. Stop wasting precious natural resources on something that nobody—I repeat, nobody—needs in their lives! www.theguardian.com/environment/...
UK’s largest proposed datacentre ‘understating planned water use’
Analysis suggests consumption at Northumberland site could be 50 times higher than US operator QTS estimates
www.theguardian.com
December 19, 2025 at 6:50 AM
This is an outrage. Stop wasting precious natural resources on something that nobody—I repeat, nobody—needs in their lives! www.theguardian.com/environment/...
Another lovely and carefully nuanced write-up of my latest research. Many thanks indeed to @medievalists.bsky.social!
Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made for a Monastic Dining Hall? www.medievalists.net/2025/12/baye... #BayeuxTapestry #Medieval #history
Was the Bayeux Tapestry Made for a Monastic Dining Hall? - Medievalists.net
New research suggests the Bayeux Tapestry may have been designed for display in a monastic refectory at St Augustine’s Abbey in Canterbury, where monks could view and reflect on its narrative during…
www.medievalists.net
December 18, 2025 at 9:37 AM
Another lovely and carefully nuanced write-up of my latest research. Many thanks indeed to @medievalists.bsky.social!
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
When you write the perfectly evidenced paragraph and put a footnote at the end to your nemesis‘s article with the gloss ‘pace’, that's a spite-ation.
December 17, 2025 at 11:40 AM
When you write the perfectly evidenced paragraph and put a footnote at the end to your nemesis‘s article with the gloss ‘pace’, that's a spite-ation.
About time, too! That Turing scheme was an unmitigated shambles!
December 16, 2025 at 6:58 PM
About time, too! That Turing scheme was an unmitigated shambles!
I do love the cartoon, though!
Can’t say that making it into the printed edition of the Daily Mail was top of my list of academic career goals, but hey-ho..!
December 16, 2025 at 10:12 AM
I do love the cartoon, though!
Can’t say that making it into the printed edition of the Daily Mail was top of my list of academic career goals, but hey-ho..!
December 16, 2025 at 9:51 AM
Can’t say that making it into the printed edition of the Daily Mail was top of my list of academic career goals, but hey-ho..!
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
Very nice and nuanced write-up of my latest research by @historyextra.bsky.social! Many thanks to @djmusgrove.bsky.social & Co.! 😊 www.historyextra.com/period/norma...
The Bayeux Tapestry is beautiful, but what was its purpose? New research might have the answer
A new theory proposes that the Bayeux Tapestry was designed to deliver moral messages to medieval monks over dinner
www.historyextra.com
December 15, 2025 at 4:32 PM
Very nice and nuanced write-up of my latest research by @historyextra.bsky.social! Many thanks to @djmusgrove.bsky.social & Co.! 😊 www.historyextra.com/period/norma...
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
An interim version of the Explore Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue is now available through the BL website: searcharchives.bl.uk
It contains all the catalogue data from the eve of the 2023 cyberattack, and features embedded links to all currently available digitised content within the records.
It contains all the catalogue data from the eve of the 2023 cyberattack, and features embedded links to all currently available digitised content within the records.
December 15, 2025 at 1:40 PM
An interim version of the Explore Archives and Manuscripts Catalogue is now available through the BL website: searcharchives.bl.uk
It contains all the catalogue data from the eve of the 2023 cyberattack, and features embedded links to all currently available digitised content within the records.
It contains all the catalogue data from the eve of the 2023 cyberattack, and features embedded links to all currently available digitised content within the records.
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
My tasty take (pun intended) on the Bayeux Tapestry—a subject on which I had vowed never to publish. Available Open Access with @ihr.bsky.social. See what you make of it, and bon appetit! academic.oup.com/histres/adva...
Chewing over the Norman Conquest: the Bayeux Tapestry as monastic mealtime reading*
Abstract. This article offers a new contextualization of the Bayeux Tapestry by exploring its use as mealtime reading in a monastic refectory. This concept
academic.oup.com
December 15, 2025 at 10:59 AM
My tasty take (pun intended) on the Bayeux Tapestry—a subject on which I had vowed never to publish. Available Open Access with @ihr.bsky.social. See what you make of it, and bon appetit! academic.oup.com/histres/adva...
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
A press release from the University of Bristol about an exciting new article by @benpohl.bsky.social and published by Historical Research: www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2025/de...
December: Bayeux Tapestry could have been originally designed as mealtime reading for medi | News and features | University of Bristol
New research by an historian from the University of Bristol offers an intriguing suggestion about one of history’s biggest mysteries – the original purpose of the world-famous Bayeux Tapestry.
www.bristol.ac.uk
December 15, 2025 at 11:50 AM
A press release from the University of Bristol about an exciting new article by @benpohl.bsky.social and published by Historical Research: www.bristol.ac.uk/news/2025/de...
My tasty take (pun intended) on the Bayeux Tapestry—a subject on which I had vowed never to publish. Available Open Access with @ihr.bsky.social. See what you make of it, and bon appetit! academic.oup.com/histres/adva...
Chewing over the Norman Conquest: the Bayeux Tapestry as monastic mealtime reading*
Abstract. This article offers a new contextualization of the Bayeux Tapestry by exploring its use as mealtime reading in a monastic refectory. This concept
academic.oup.com
December 15, 2025 at 10:59 AM
My tasty take (pun intended) on the Bayeux Tapestry—a subject on which I had vowed never to publish. Available Open Access with @ihr.bsky.social. See what you make of it, and bon appetit! academic.oup.com/histres/adva...
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
Very happy to have signed the contract for my next book with @reaktionbooks.bsky.social! ✍️
December 11, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Very happy to have signed the contract for my next book with @reaktionbooks.bsky.social! ✍️
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...
December 11, 2025 at 8:56 PM
An academic disliked an Oxford Very Short Introduction (145 pages) in his field so much that he wrote a 200 page book review attacking it. www.pierre-legrand.com/ewExternalFi...
Reposted by Prof Ben Pohl
Can you help @nationaltrust.org.uk buy- and care for - the land surrounding the Cerne Giant to help protect this numinous landscape?
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/cerne-abba...
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/cerne-abba...
December 3, 2025 at 8:46 AM
Can you help @nationaltrust.org.uk buy- and care for - the land surrounding the Cerne Giant to help protect this numinous landscape?
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/cerne-abba...
www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/cerne-abba...
Very happy to have signed the contract for my next book with @reaktionbooks.bsky.social! ✍️
December 11, 2025 at 1:17 PM
Very happy to have signed the contract for my next book with @reaktionbooks.bsky.social! ✍️
What a bloody great thing AI is, huh? Truly marvellous! Better make sure to shoehorn it into every aspect of Higher Education!
December 10, 2025 at 7:27 AM
What a bloody great thing AI is, huh? Truly marvellous! Better make sure to shoehorn it into every aspect of Higher Education!
Nice work by my @uobrishistory.bsky.social / @bristolcms.bsky.social colleague and fellow Bristol Record Society councillor, Evan Jones!
bristolrecordsociety.org/stories-from...
bristolrecordsociety.org/stories-from...
Four Jokes on the Millerd Map
Evan Jones, University of Bristol (8 Dec 2025) 10 min read Millerd Map (1673) James Millerd’s 1673 map of Bristol is the best known and most widely used representation of the pre-modern city.…
bristolrecordsociety.org
December 8, 2025 at 1:07 PM
Nice work by my @uobrishistory.bsky.social / @bristolcms.bsky.social colleague and fellow Bristol Record Society councillor, Evan Jones!
bristolrecordsociety.org/stories-from...
bristolrecordsociety.org/stories-from...