I find this sort of thing so weird. I don't know what Canadian conservativism has to do with Robin Hood, but he's been portrayed as a champion of the poor from the earliest references to his legend in the 14th century. Even in the early ballads, "rob the rich, give to the poor" is his thing.
This happens a lot in by-elections, especially when the right wing candidate is really bad. People assume centrists and the left don't vote together, but they often do. I remember in 2021 everyone thought the Chesham and Amersham by-election would be neck and neck and the Lib Dems won 57% to 35%
Subreddit activity rankings, showing that r/AskHistorians has finally triumphed over r/Conservative, with r/confession as collateral damage.
Look everyone we did it!
Screenshot showing that r/Conservative, noted bastion of free/awful speech, is now ranked just one above us in weekly visitor numbers.
Please make it your new resolution to visit AskHistorians once a week, because we've never been this invested in overtaking another community.
For that 0.01% you'll be outclassed by someone with "more experience." And by that they mean "someone over 35 applied".
There's loads of this AI shit btw. Absolutely tonnes of it. A particularly prevalent grifter seems to be "Dakikon Publishing", who claim to specialise in self-help (which has long been haunted by AI/outsourced crap) but they've recently moved into history and the results are... not good. These suck.
A reasonably nice front cover for a book called "The Art of Medieval Warfare" by Andy Clarke. Its real author was some LLM chatbot.
An Amazon review for "The Art of Medieval Warfare" highlighting the AI slop, including parts of the book where the so-called author left in the AI asking if they'd like more information on mercenaries.
If you're buying history books (or I guess any books) for people this Christmas, be careful you don't accidentally buy some AI garbage, which has flooded the online market and made it much more difficult to buy books online. Good news for the high street book shops, very bad news for everyone else.
That is a sick looking GameCube
Manuscript image of three waving skeletons
Souling is not a well recorded activity, and we don't know what traditions were popular when. Turnip jack-o-lanterns, costumes, plays, and songs seem to date to the late-16th century at the earliest. Medieval Halloween was for the dead, not fun. But it was at least a good time to tell ghost stories!
A carved turnip jack-o-lantern
Toward the end of the Middle Ages, this led to the tradition of "souling", where groups of people would go door to door offering prayers for dead relatives in exchange for sweet treats, usually a "soul cake". They'd carry lanterns to see, and at some point these were put into carved turnips. (6)
A small manuscript image of three men confronted by a trio of undead skeletons
Often, ghost stories would be modified such that the power of Christianity was the solution. Medieval ghosts were usually portrayed stuck in this world as Purgatory, and needed the prayers of the living to pass on.
Not always though, with revenants (undead) you could usually decapitate them (5)
A tiny manuscript image of Walter Map, 12th century bureaucrat and folklorist
So while the Catholic Church generally took a dim view of ghosts and the pagan "Otherworld" that they came from, it was common during Allhallowtide to use ghost stories as a preaching tool. In the 12th century, Walter Map could record loads of them ranging from the undead to the Wild Hunt. (4)
Little is known about Samhain in the Middle Ages with certainty. Samhain was more about ghosts and spirits coming into our world, while Allhallowtide was about Christian souls departing to the next. But as both concerned the dead, they merged into a festival of both pagan and Christian elements. (3)
Modern Halloween has many influences from across the world, but some practises may have been vaguely similar as early as c.1400. All Hallows coincided with the festival of Samhain, practised initially in Ireland and spread to the wider British Isles in the Middle Ages. (2)
On the topic of horrors (that aren't the British fever dream known as Mr Blobby), Happy Halloween!
Medieval Halloween was a bit different, being a three day festival held from 31 October - 2 November, encompassing All Saints' Eve (Halloween), All Saints' Day (All Hallows') and All Souls' Day (1)
A leaflet promoting Mr Blobby for Prime Minister. If you are not seeing this, run while you still can.
I tried out the new Affinity. It's a bit finicky but it will do, and although it will load old affinity files it's hit or miss as to how much functionality they have. Still much better than Adobe. This is what I did with an old Lib Dem leaflet template, for which I wholeheartedly apologise.
You are blessed not to see this. It's a political leaflet in the Lib Dem style, but it's promoting Mr Blobby.
Ok, I tried out the new Affinity. It's a bit finicky, and although it will load old affinity files it's hit or miss as to how much functionality there actually is with them. Still better than Adobe. This is what I did with an old Lib Dem leaflet template, for which I wholeheartedly apologise.
As far as I can tell, no. The new version is an all-in-one programme now rather than lots of different ones for different applications, and it's free. Seems like the new parent company wants to very aggressively go after Adobe's market share and is only charging for premium AI tools.
Fantastic article in which actual experts on AI and higher education cut through the nonsense surrounding the infinite garbage engines and expose a system captured by the techbro sales pitch. "A general ban is necessary, but nobody dares to say so."
LiDAR map of Berkhamsted Castle
The wonderful Berkhamsted Castle, built by William the Conqueror, remade in stone in the early-mid 12th century, as viewed through LiDAR. The dimples at the top were probably platforms for catapults from a siege in 1216, in which a French invasion took the castle before being defeated at Lincoln.
A footpath. Broken fencing lines either side. The path has a constant downward gradient.
Sashes Island as viewed from the air, with Cookham Lock running through the middle.
What I find most striking is how invisible all this history is. There is no visible trace of what was once one of the most important military camps in the nascent kingdom of England. The Roman road is just a mediocre footpath, the only indication of its history being its constant gradient. (end)
Sashes Island today: an empty field with a faint rainbow and a treeline in the background
A bridge crossing between Berkshire and Buckinghamshire would not return until 1280 at Maidenhead. Locals got by with a ferry until a bridge was built in Cookham in 1840. The Roman road is now lost, but pieces survive as a footpath. Now all that remains is farmland, a lock, and some nice trees. (7)
It’s not clear why William would have wanted it gone, but it may have been to give the Normans unfettered access by river to the Thames Valley. The point of the burh at Sashes Island was to limit access, so it was a nuisance. It seems the crossing, if still around in 1066, was also destroyed. (6)
The Domesday Book entry for Cookham
What happened to it? It seems William the Conqueror happened to it. No post-conquest material has ever been found there, nor are there references to it as a military site after 1066. And the Domesday Book marks the local parish as 'partial waste' in 1086, having lost value from £50 to £38 15s. (5)
That this was the site of the Burh of Sceaftessige mentioned in the 914 AD Burghal Hidage was only confirmed in the 1830s, when Cookham Lock was constructed. This required extensive earthworks on and around the island, during which a variety of late-Saxon spearheads and axeheads were found. (4)
After this battle it seems the island was militarised. Being in the middle of the Thames at a point where the river splits and becomes shallow, any raid that made it past London could be stopped here. The defences likely ran around the entire island, totalling 1km of fortifications. (3)
After Alfred the Great beat the Danes at Burnham, they were - according to contemporary sources - pursued north until they reached a crossing of the Thames known as 'Thorney'. The only crossing north of Burnham was Sashes Island, where the Romans had built one centuries earlier. (2)
A picture of a treeline along the Thames at the start of autumn
This doesn't look like much, but it was once one of the most important places in the emerging country of England. This is now known as Sashes Island in the middle of the Thames between Berkshire and Buckinghamshire, but was once the Burh of Sceaftessige, a formidable outpost against the Vikings. (1)
It's very strange. There is a strong case out there for digital ID similar to some other European countries; it is somewhat cumbersome and risky to prove ID using bills and passport scans, for example. The Estonian model is just out there for us to copy.
And he's instead doing... whatever this is?
