Charlotte Gauthier
@faraiunvers.bsky.social
Historian of late medieval/early modern religious conflict and diplomacy. England and Christendom, the crusades, and the Reformation. Also: digital humanities, early music, historical theology, and public history. www.charlottegauthier.com
If you’re in London this Friday and want to hear me talk about why the past really matters to how we live (and worship) today, and what we can learn from the more difficult bits of history, come join me at the Angel pub in Rotherhithe at 6:30 for a drink and a bit of a chat. Should be great fun.
Our next B&T meeting is this Friday, when we’ll be delighted to have Charlotte Gauthier - who will be talking about how we might learn from the difficult parts of church history. From 6:30pm at The Angel Pub, Rotherhithe - everyone welcome!
October 14, 2025 at 10:03 AM
If you’re in London this Friday and want to hear me talk about why the past really matters to how we live (and worship) today, and what we can learn from the more difficult bits of history, come join me at the Angel pub in Rotherhithe at 6:30 for a drink and a bit of a chat. Should be great fun.
Join me next year at the #SSCLE conference in Porto, from 29 June-3 July 2025. Do please share this #CFP with anyone who studies the Later Crusades (post-1291) and would like to share their research with an enthusiastic and perceptive audience. #skystorians #medievalsky #earlymodernsky
October 7, 2025 at 8:52 AM
Join me next year at the #SSCLE conference in Porto, from 29 June-3 July 2025. Do please share this #CFP with anyone who studies the Later Crusades (post-1291) and would like to share their research with an enthusiastic and perceptive audience. #skystorians #medievalsky #earlymodernsky
Setting up Moodle for my digital history class this term and considering what to do for an assignment on the week I talk about AI slop and fake historical records. I've settled on a bibliography assignment. Use your favourite AI to generate a bibliography, then verify the references.
September 12, 2025 at 3:23 PM
Setting up Moodle for my digital history class this term and considering what to do for an assignment on the week I talk about AI slop and fake historical records. I've settled on a bibliography assignment. Use your favourite AI to generate a bibliography, then verify the references.
On this, the final weekend before what’s shaping up to be a brutal term, I’m in Hammersmith on a sort of pilgrimage.
August 23, 2025 at 2:29 PM
On this, the final weekend before what’s shaping up to be a brutal term, I’m in Hammersmith on a sort of pilgrimage.
Reposted by Charlotte Gauthier
A poem from this morning.
August 14, 2025 at 6:53 PM
A poem from this morning.
Reposted by Charlotte Gauthier
ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT
The Appendix on an AI policy is actually quite bad. Having an AI deliver a summary before reading has major implications in terms of the experience of student learning. What we want students to do and how they do it is the question. The experience of reading is not the same as reading a summary.
August 5, 2025 at 8:29 PM
ACADEMIC READING ALREADY COMES WITH A SUMMARY IT IS CALLED THE ABSTRACT
Sod’s Law of Research Days: As soon as you request the manuscripts you want to see at the library hours away from your home, several different people will email you wanting to set up urgent meetings for that very same day.
August 3, 2025 at 7:41 PM
Sod’s Law of Research Days: As soon as you request the manuscripts you want to see at the library hours away from your home, several different people will email you wanting to set up urgent meetings for that very same day.
My Saturday project is doing a bit of conservation work on two 17th-century carved panels I’ve just acquired (rather cheaply, I may add). Treated them for woodworm just in case, and now comes the polishing.
August 2, 2025 at 12:10 PM
My Saturday project is doing a bit of conservation work on two 17th-century carved panels I’ve just acquired (rather cheaply, I may add). Treated them for woodworm just in case, and now comes the polishing.
All the most interesting stuff about the Tudors comes from their interaction with the Habsburgs. There, I said it.
Of all the 16th-cen European royal dynasties, the Habsburgs are by far the most interesting and the Tudors by far the least. I will die on this hill.
It always amazes me there are a million series about the Tudors (don't get me wrong, love those as I'm a Tudor buff), but only a handfull about the Habsburgs, you know the dynasty that ran half the globe at some point.
July 23, 2025 at 12:23 PM
All the most interesting stuff about the Tudors comes from their interaction with the Habsburgs. There, I said it.
CS Lewis wrote this book in 1938. It's called Out of the Silent Planet. Bryan Johnson is just LARPing the role of the book's antagonist, who sounds precisely like this.
this is a diseased mind. this is a person who has so thoroughly divorced himself from his own humanity that he cannot even conceive of motivators other than wealth and status
www.wired.com/story/big-in...
www.wired.com/story/big-in...
July 22, 2025 at 5:07 PM
CS Lewis wrote this book in 1938. It's called Out of the Silent Planet. Bryan Johnson is just LARPing the role of the book's antagonist, who sounds precisely like this.
It’s now live! I’ve been working on this Peasants’ War project with some fabulous colleagues from @ox.ac.uk and @royalholloway.bsky.social over the past year+ and we’re delighted to share the fruits of our research.
Now live! We've created the most comprehensive map to-date of religious institutions in the German Peasants' War (1524-26), identifying many more affected institutions than existing source lists.
Find our map, case studies, and much more on our website:
germanpeasantswar.web.ox.ac.uk
#skystorians
Find our map, case studies, and much more on our website:
germanpeasantswar.web.ox.ac.uk
#skystorians
Visualising the Destruction of Convents and Monasteries in the German Peasants' War
The the first-ever attempt to quantify and map the full destruction of religious houses during the German Peasants' War (1525-26).
germanpeasantswar.web.ox.ac.uk
July 3, 2025 at 12:35 PM
It’s now live! I’ve been working on this Peasants’ War project with some fabulous colleagues from @ox.ac.uk and @royalholloway.bsky.social over the past year+ and we’re delighted to share the fruits of our research.
The last bits are falling into place on the Peasants’ War project. It feels a bit odd that phase 1 is almost done. But - huzzah! - follow-on funding will now enable us to follow up the monasteries project with research on castles in the PW. If you’re in Bristol tomorrow come say hi!
Our team is all set to launch our Visualising the Destruction of Convents and Monasteries in the German Peasants’ War project at the Society for Renaissance Studies conference tomorrow. We can’t wait to share with you what we’ve been working on for the last year-and-a-bit! Come see us in panel 2.4
July 2, 2025 at 10:36 AM
The last bits are falling into place on the Peasants’ War project. It feels a bit odd that phase 1 is almost done. But - huzzah! - follow-on funding will now enable us to follow up the monasteries project with research on castles in the PW. If you’re in Bristol tomorrow come say hi!
Went to the National Gallery yesterday to experience the re-hang in the Sainsbury Wing. Came across this… interesting… potted history of the Reformation. Not quite sure it rises to the level of 1066 And All That.
June 23, 2025 at 1:23 PM
Went to the National Gallery yesterday to experience the re-hang in the Sainsbury Wing. Came across this… interesting… potted history of the Reformation. Not quite sure it rises to the level of 1066 And All That.
Very much looking forward to talking about our @germanpeasantswar.bsky.social project at the SRS conference next week. See you in Bristol, if you’ll be there!
Just over a week until all #EarlyModern ists descend upon Bristol!! Find out who’s joining us at #RenSoc25 and start those conversations ahead of our gathering in person:
go.bsky.app/DVyFCxt #SkyStorians
go.bsky.app/DVyFCxt #SkyStorians
June 22, 2025 at 8:18 PM
Very much looking forward to talking about our @germanpeasantswar.bsky.social project at the SRS conference next week. See you in Bristol, if you’ll be there!
Using AI to “read” literature implies that literary style is ancillary to some informational substance. It’s just simply not. Style is intrinsic to story: how a story is told is inextricable from the story itself. I have never got on with Dickens’ style, but this misses the point by a mile.
This article is going to turn me into the Joker. Literary style is not a puzzle you solve to get a little information treat 😩😩😩
June 22, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Using AI to “read” literature implies that literary style is ancillary to some informational substance. It’s just simply not. Style is intrinsic to story: how a story is told is inextricable from the story itself. I have never got on with Dickens’ style, but this misses the point by a mile.
I didn't take much convincing to sign up to this fabulous-looking conference. Tyndale's Antwerp is (for me) John Hackett's Antwerp. Wolsey's right-hand man was negotiating payment of a crusade subvention whilst simultaneously tasked with intercepting Tyndale's Bible before it reached England.
Registration for the Tudor England and the Antwerp Book Trade conference (8-11 July 2025) is now open!
Join us in person in wonderful Antwerp and sign up: tinyurl.com/TudorAntwerp! #EarlyModern #BookHistory #RareBooks
Spread the woooooord!
Join us in person in wonderful Antwerp and sign up: tinyurl.com/TudorAntwerp! #EarlyModern #BookHistory #RareBooks
Spread the woooooord!
June 16, 2025 at 7:29 PM
I didn't take much convincing to sign up to this fabulous-looking conference. Tyndale's Antwerp is (for me) John Hackett's Antwerp. Wolsey's right-hand man was negotiating payment of a crusade subvention whilst simultaneously tasked with intercepting Tyndale's Bible before it reached England.
A certain well-known ebook database has added an AI-powered "Research Assistant" to its interface. No thank you.
Apologies for incinerating half a tree to generate a single inane point about Duns Scotus. My "Research Assistant" was meant to summarise a wide-ranging chapter about Scholasticism. 🤷♀️
Apologies for incinerating half a tree to generate a single inane point about Duns Scotus. My "Research Assistant" was meant to summarise a wide-ranging chapter about Scholasticism. 🤷♀️
June 8, 2025 at 5:16 PM
A certain well-known ebook database has added an AI-powered "Research Assistant" to its interface. No thank you.
Apologies for incinerating half a tree to generate a single inane point about Duns Scotus. My "Research Assistant" was meant to summarise a wide-ranging chapter about Scholasticism. 🤷♀️
Apologies for incinerating half a tree to generate a single inane point about Duns Scotus. My "Research Assistant" was meant to summarise a wide-ranging chapter about Scholasticism. 🤷♀️
Today at the @cemskcl.bsky.social conference I learned that ghosts are a Jesuit conspiracy. They stick candles on crabs, then release them into graveyards to convince the unwary of the doctrine of Purgatory. (Either that or they’re just chaps dressed up in bedsheets.)
June 6, 2025 at 10:15 AM
Today at the @cemskcl.bsky.social conference I learned that ghosts are a Jesuit conspiracy. They stick candles on crabs, then release them into graveyards to convince the unwary of the doctrine of Purgatory. (Either that or they’re just chaps dressed up in bedsheets.)
Reposted by Charlotte Gauthier
#OTD in the German Peasants' War
Monday, 5 June 1525 (Pfingstmontag)
Peasants threaten the Töß convent outside Winterthur. The clever diplomacy of the city council and the Töß nuns manages to steer the angry crowd into getting drunk instead. The peasants return home the next morning.
#histsky
Monday, 5 June 1525 (Pfingstmontag)
Peasants threaten the Töß convent outside Winterthur. The clever diplomacy of the city council and the Töß nuns manages to steer the angry crowd into getting drunk instead. The peasants return home the next morning.
#histsky
June 5, 2025 at 10:23 AM
I think it’s jolly rude to send unsolicited auction catalogues to impecunious scholars who cannot purchase All The Old Books.
June 5, 2025 at 2:54 PM
I think it’s jolly rude to send unsolicited auction catalogues to impecunious scholars who cannot purchase All The Old Books.
Putting the finishing touches on some slides for tomorrow’s @cemskcl.bsky.social colloquium on early modern war narratives. It’s a great joy to return to the crusader I call ‘Bob’, whose story has been the jumping off point for so many fascinating lines of research since I first ‘met’ him in 2018.
June 5, 2025 at 10:16 AM
Putting the finishing touches on some slides for tomorrow’s @cemskcl.bsky.social colloquium on early modern war narratives. It’s a great joy to return to the crusader I call ‘Bob’, whose story has been the jumping off point for so many fascinating lines of research since I first ‘met’ him in 2018.
Sod’s Law of Academic Writing: Five minutes before the library closes, you will inevitably be making rapid progress on a difficult paragraph - which it is then necessary to abandon mid-thought.
May 31, 2025 at 4:03 PM
Sod’s Law of Academic Writing: Five minutes before the library closes, you will inevitably be making rapid progress on a difficult paragraph - which it is then necessary to abandon mid-thought.
This will be an exceptional colloquium, and you should all come - especially if you want to hear about one of the most cringeworthy (but still fascinating) neo-Latin war poems ever.
@cemskcl.bsky.social have outdone themselves. Hope to see you all there.
kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/lamen...
@cemskcl.bsky.social have outdone themselves. Hope to see you all there.
kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/lamen...
Early Modern War Narratives - Annual CEMS Colloquium — CEMS KCL Blog
Join CEMS for our annual colloquium. This year's theme is early modern war narratives. Keynote: Prof. Andrew Hopper and Dr. Ismini Pells.
kingsearlymodern.co.uk
May 22, 2025 at 6:55 PM
This will be an exceptional colloquium, and you should all come - especially if you want to hear about one of the most cringeworthy (but still fascinating) neo-Latin war poems ever.
@cemskcl.bsky.social have outdone themselves. Hope to see you all there.
kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/lamen...
@cemskcl.bsky.social have outdone themselves. Hope to see you all there.
kingsearlymodern.co.uk/events/lamen...