The tradition of eating hot cross buns as we know them dates back to the 18th century, according to English HeritageLink opens in a new window. It has been suggested that the St Alban’s Bun, a cake local to St Alban’s, was the "ancient prototype" for the hot cross bun.

These buns are flavoured with "grains of paradise", sometimes known as Meleguata pepper and closely related to cardamom, and a cross was slashed into the dough rather than piped on.

Some historians say that bakers who marked their loaves with crosses believed it would ensure the bread rose successfully and would ward off evil spirits.

Later, it was believed that hanging loaves and buns marked with crosses that were baked on Good Friday would provide protection against evil spirits. These miraculous loaves were also believed to never mould and would last all year long until the next Good Friday came along, when they would be replaced.

The hot cross bun’s links to religion have always been quite clear - even if they haven’t always been welcome. Professor Rebecca Earle, food historian at the University of Warwick, tells Yahoo UK: "I don’t think there’s any ambiguity about hot cross buns being associated with Good Friday and therefore, Easter.

Chart-toppers from the 17^th century revived by historian and musicians are making a comeback. Christopher Marsh, a history professor at Queen’s University Belfast, and Angela McShane, an honorary reader in history at the University of Warwick's Department of History, counted editions of single-sheet songs and other metrics to identify top hits from the Elizabethan and Stuart eras.

Congratulations to all our Faculty of Arts students who are graduating today. We hope you and your families and friends have a wonderful day celebrating your achievements.

A look back at the hidden figures in History

On Tuesday 25^th to Friday 28^th July, 91 Year 12 students from across the country to take part in a 4 day, 3 night residential on campus as part of the Sutton Trust Summer SchoolLink opens in a new window. This year we offered students 7 different subject areas, including 2 Arts Faculty focused subject streams, Classics, History of Art, and Film & Television Studies & Politics, Liberal Arts & History.

The NHS celebrates its’s 75th anniversary this year. From birth to death, and everything in between, the NHS is there throughout most of our lives. But what do you think was one of the biggest causes of death in the UK before the NHS came into being? Diseases? Childbirth? Leukaemia? BBC CWR Reporter Tom Cooke has been out to meet Professor Roberta Bivins from the Centre for the History of Medicine in Warwick's Department of History, who has been looking at the impact that the NHS has had on UK society and reveals what the biggest killer of people was before we had the NHS.

Recently, we shared more about our new home in Venice, just one of the ways Warwick is reconfirming a deep commitment to the arts.

In this article for the Times Higher Education (THE), Stuart Croft, our Vice-Chancellor, talks about the importance of backing both STEM and the arts, and why Warwick is investing more than ever in arts and humanities.

You can view the article on the THE website (first published 26 June 2023) or read it below.

The British Academy/Wolfson Fellowships Awards will be providing funding to Dr James Poskett, Associate Professor in the History of Science and Technology at the University of Warwick.

Through his research, Dr Poskett will be working on a project titled ‘The Scientific Revolution as Global History, 1200-1800’. He hopes this will provide a major reassessment of the concept of the ‘scientific revolution’. In doing so, the project will build on Dr Poskett’s recent book ‘Horizons: A Global History of Science’.

The University of Warwick is proud of its long-standing connections with Venice. Our History and History of Art departments have collectively taught students in Venice for well over 50 years. From 2007, the University had a base in the Cannaregio district of the city. Other departments, including Italian Studies, WBS, Global Sustainable Development, Economics, WMG, and the Centre for the Study of the Renaissance, also used this space to deliver short courses and host academic conferences.

Circumstances necessitated the search for a new premises. After an interim period during which we were hosted by Ca’ Foscari, a new location was identified: the Palazzo Giustinian Lolin.

The opening event for the new venue was held on the 22nd May followed by a series of bi-lateral meetings between academics from Warwick and their counterparts from Ca' Foscari University on the 23rd May.

We caught up with Dr Kimberley Thomas (BA History 2010, MA History 2012, PhD Caribbean Studies, 2020) to talk about her time at Warwick, ahead of her return to deliver a Caribbean seminar series.