The value and provision of history and the humanities: it’s time for a political response
This week the government’s Education Secretary, Bridget Phillipson, announced the return of maintenance grants for students in greatest need. While we welcome recognition of the financial pressures and impediments many student face, it’s clear that this is a policy with nothing for the arts and humanities, including history. However, as Lucy Noakes, President of the Royal Historical Society, explains here, these pressures are equally acute for students in the arts and humanities. Moreover, as a new British Academy report on ‘Cold Spots’ shows, choice—in subjects including history—is being further eroded for many as the provision of higher education contorts to the financial crisis facing UK higher education. If the government is serious about choice, social mobility and access to education it needs to appreciate that provision of many degree subjects is now at considerable risk in a growing number of regions across the UK. For students to have greater choice and access we need the environments in which choices are made to be fair, balanced and accurate. For this we require political leadership to help us address structural failings and false narratives.
Generative AI, History and Historians, a reading guide
There are few bigger, and more pressing, topics today than the current and future impact of Generative AI. Nowhere is this more evident than in Higher Education. The opportunities and challenges of GenAI are relevant to all those engaged in teaching and research. But each discipline also has distinctive questions and concerns relating to the latest iterations of AI. What, therefore, are the possible implications for the teaching, study, research and communication of history? In this post, we offer a rolling guide to recent articles on GenAI, the humanities and history (last updated September 2025).
Five things we can learn about current English ‘flag wars’ from Germany in the 1920s and 1930s
History Matters: This is the first in a new occasional series of articles on the RHS blog which show how history can help us to understand our present times. In this first article, Nadine Rossol (University of Essex) explores the power of flags as political symbols in Weimar Germany. As Nadine argues, contests over the use and display of flags have long histories and are significant. Flag conflicts are about emotions, agency and identity. They are typically blunt and intense, going to the heart of citizen politics. Historical examples, as in the case of 1920s Germany, provide us with context for and perspective on present-day manifestations.
Teaching Medieval Heritage Trails as a Creative Health Intervention
In this post, Karen Smyth shares her recent experience of introducing medieval heritage trails to students on a Medical Humanities MA pathway. In moving beyond the traditional discipline of History, what are the challenges and opportunities in teaching not only a cross-disciplinary but also a cross-sector cohort of students? How might the Creative Health agenda, now emerging in the heritage sector, enable medieval history to play a central role in the discipline of Medical Humanities? Karen shares her teaching experiences which were made possible with the recent award, by the Society, of a Jinty Nelson Teaching Fellowship. RHS Teaching Fellowships support the development of new teaching practices in History in Higher Education.
‘Madness’, Emotion and the Archive in Early Modern England
In this post, Jonathan Willis introduces his new article, ‘“your poore distressed suppliant”: ‘Madness’, Emotion and the Archive in Early Modern England’, recently published in ‘Transactions of the Royal Historical Society’. The article focusses on the British Library’s MS Lansdowne 99, a collection of letters written to the government of Elizabethan England and annotated at several points in their history to describe their authors or contents as ‘crazy’, ‘mad’, ‘frantic’, and ‘insane’. The article explores the relationships between archives, letters and emotion in early modern England. Jonathan argues that understanding their distress not only brings us closer to marginalised people in the past, but grants us a richer knowledge of past societies and the experience of being human in them. The article is now available Open Access.
Peter J. Marshall and the Royal Historical Society: an appreciation
The Society was very sorry to learn of the death, in July, of the historian Peter J. Marshall (1933-2025). Peter’s association with the Royal Historical Society spanned more than 50 years. Elected a Fellow in 1969, Peter served as a member of the Society’s Council between 1983 to 1987, thereafter becoming Vice President until November 1991. He returned to the Council in November 1996 as President and held this position for four years. In this post, Peter Mandler, who served on the RHS Council with Peter from 1998, remembers Peter Marshall’s extensive and very considerable contribution to the Royal Historical Society both during and after his term in office.
Waterscapes: Reservoirs, Environment and Identity in Modern England and Wales
The building of reservoirs in England and Wales was key to urban growth across the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. In this post, Andrew McTominey introduces his new book—’Waterscapes: Reservoirs, Environment and Identity in Modern England and Wales’—which is published in the Society’s ‘New Historical Perspectives’ series with University of London Press. Drawing on methods from environmental history, cultural history and historical geography, Andrew’s book explores the multiple and long-term impacts of reservoir construction and management in rural England and Wales from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. ‘Waterscapes’ is the 23rd title in the Society’s New Historical Perspectives series for early career historians. Andrew’s book, and other titles in the series are published free, Open Access, and in paperback print.
Oral history and the built environment: using personal testimonies to understand spatial experiences and urban change
In this post, Eve Pennington describes the use and value of oral history in her study of the Lancashire new town of Skelmersdale. As Eve argues, oral history offers creative approaches to urban history, helping us better appreciate the motivations, expectations and actions of residents. The result is a narrative of urban development that is often at odds with those found in the official reports of planners and councils. In 2024-25, Eve held a Royal Historical Society Centenary PhD Fellowship. She has recently submitted her doctorate for which she studied at the University of Manchester.
Dane saga: Imagining a viking Past in the Late Medieval Low Countries
Preserved in the Dutch town of Breda, an unassuming manuscript offers exceptional insights into the way that vikings were (re)conceived during the later medieval period – their memory built on a historical bedrock that never was. In this post, Christian Cooijmans delves into the rich tale of the Dane Saga (‘Denensage’), exploring through this text the development of urban social memory in the late medieval Dutch town of Breda. Christian’s research, funded by the recent award of a Royal Historical Society Open Research Support Grant, offers a glimpse into local medieval history situated within a wider context as understood through literature and folktale. This post draws on Christian’s new article, ‘The Dane saga of Breda. A late medieval account of viking endeavour and vernacular devotion’, now published in ‘The Medieval Low Countries’ and available Open Access.
The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541)
Helen Newsome-Chandler introduces her new volume in the Society’s Camden Series, ‘The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541)’, published in August 2025. This volume presents the surviving holograph correspondence of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots as a stand-alone edition for the first time. The 111 holograph letters and 4 ‘hybrid’ letters form an unprecedented epistolary archive, featuring the largest collection of holograph correspondence written in English or Scots of any medieval or early modern queen. The letters chart Margaret’s life as a late medieval queen, including her dual identity as queen of Scots and an English princess, and her important role in Anglo-Scots politics and diplomacy. To mark publication of this important volume, the Introduction and full text of ‘The Holograph Letters of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots (1489-1541)’ are now available, free to read, via Cambridge University Press, until 30 September 2025.
Four Suggestions for the Future of (Environmental) History
In April 2023, eighteen scholars from a range of disciplinary backgrounds in the humanities, natural and social sciences came together for a one-day workshop to study past environmental change and its effects on human societies. Selected conversations from this workshop have recently been published as ‘The Future of (Environmental History’, a roundtable article in ‘Transactions of the Royal Historical Society’. To mark publication, Alex Hibberts identifies four suggestions for the future of (environmental) history that arose from the workshop. These proposals consider historians’ contribution to environmental debate, the skills required by historians to consider questions of environmental change, and the need to approach environmental history as more than a sub-field of historical research.
RHS Elections 2025: Insights into the Society’s Council and the role of Councillors
Each year the Royal Historical Society holds elections to appoint three current Fellows as new members to its Council. The Council is the Society’s governing body, with responsibility for the objectives and work of the RHS. The election round for 2025 is now open, with an invitation to all RHS Fellows to submit nominations to stand in this year’s ballot. All Councillors are Fellows of the Society, and those seeking election must also be current Fellows. If you’re a Fellow, and interested in standing for election, this brief commentary offers an insight into the Council, and the activities and experiences of five current Councillors. We hope this answers the questions you might have before submitting your nomination before the closing date of Friday 11 August.
