This blog was born out of our studies as history PhD students at the University of St Andrews. During our research we often encountered stories in the archives that simply had to be retold.

Tales of the everyday tell us lots about the knowledge of people in the past.

In this blog, we would like to share that knowledge with you.

The name of this blog, Scilicet – which comes from the Latin words scire (to know) and licet (it is allowed), reflects our intentions to share our fun historical stories within their context with anyone who is interested!

We try to write in a simple rather than simplistic way so anyone could enjoy our lovely-though-often-obscure subjects and historical sources.

Natalie M. Smith

James Fox

My focus is on the history of Sweden, and includes territories which used to be part of the Swedish Empire. My interests lie in the intersection of power relations, empire, national identity, institutions, and the history of science. This work is primarily grounded in the early modern period, but also extends to the twentieth-century eugenics movement. You can find me on Bluesky @nataliesmith

Guy Fassler

I love Italy. So much so, that I dedicated almost a decade and a half to studying its history, focusing mainly on the Late Medieval and Renaissance periods. I am interested in social, urban, and spatial histories of northern Italian communes (particularly Bologna), as well as in anything fifteenth-century humanists were up to. You can find me on Bluesky @GuyFassler

My work centres on the history of everyday skills and knowledge among ordinary people in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Britain. I am particularly interested in numeracy within the broader context of the social and cultural history of knowledge and communication in the early modern world. You can find me on Bluesky @jamesafox