Please pay your comic artists so they can keep drawing panels like this.

#AbsoluteBatman

I should be grading, which of course means I have exhausted every possible route on the internet to learn about arrowheads made from meteorites, including the Mörigen Arrowhead, found in Estonia and thought to have been made from one of the Kaali meteorites nearly 3,000 years ago.

I spent far too much time trying to figure out why there was a photo of Benicio del Toro in a story about a Nintendo veteran.

Dr. Marie Kelleher was an incredible scholar who mentored me at CSU Long Beach for ~8 years. I studied under her for my bachelor's and master's degrees in history. Like everyone who knew her, I was devastated by her sudden passing last year. I'm thrilled that her final book, The Hungry City, is out.

Eyewitness Dinosaur Hunter (1996)

A local account I follow for the city of Montpellier in France posted the January 2025 meal calendar for school kids. It’s genuinely disorienting comparing the quality of this food to the processed pizza bagels, chicken nuggets, and Hot Cheetos on offer for us at my school in the US in the 1990s.

Here is a grumpy fish creature with a leaf tail drawn by a notary to serve as the letter “I” in 1372.

Am I right that the fish has a mustache?

#medievalsky

As a bonus, here is a real photo of an average client in the Middle Ages waiting for a notary to finish signing their document.

I love medieval notarial signatures. Some are more glamorous than the one pictured, but I like how the notary—named Berengarius Rogarius—embedded his initials into his mark of authenticity. Dated 1284.

The document is a mom getting permission to sell her son's property...More below. #medievalsky

My students are often surprised to learn that medieval quills 🪶 typically had no decorative plumes. The barbs were almost completely stripped off, as depicted in this 13th-century manuscript. So, I’m curious: how did the fully plumed quill become a mainstay of pop media? #medievalsky

In 1348, a notary doodled this castle at the bottom of a merchant's will. The doodle had a purpose, though. Notaries in the Middle Ages created personalized symbols to authenticate the documents they drafted. This notary chose a castle because of his name: Johannes de Castello. #medievalsky

This little manuscript is a king’s order from the year 1272 to pay his court jester.

King James I of Aragon paid around 100 pieces of silver to Martynus, labeled in the document as a “joculator”—literally, “a person who jokes.” The king’s royal seal is affixed to the back. #medievalsky

This is a marriage contract from the year 1260. A notary drafted this for a couple in southern France. The groom, Andreas Delmas; the bride, Ermessand...

Notarial contracts are so fun. I've seen thousands. Not often glamorous, they're glimpses into the tantalizingly mundane. (1/2)

#medievalsky

In honor of Marc Bloch’s entry into the Panthéon, some encouraging words from The Historian’s Craft, which he wrote nearly 80 years ago while fighting with the French Resistance, just months before the Nazis captured and later executed him. #medievalsky

Glad my YouTube algorithm recommended this and not "3+ hours of medieval scholastic polemics concerning nominalist epistemology," which would have had me tossing and turning.

A favorite manuscript from my collection:

A law student's diploma from the University of Paris, 1568.

The student received a degree in canon law after being "rigorously examined" by the faculty on August 24.

The school's wax seal is attached. Faculty signatures under the plica. #medievalsky

I’m a medieval historian specializing in law & notarial culture in the Mediterranean region. My PhD research focused on the rise of the legal profession in the city of Montpellier, c. 1200-1400. Manuscripts & paleography 📜!

Also a professor of World History. Some of my courses below:
🗃️ #medievalsky