It's kind of thrilling to see the narrative historical detail still available to us at a 500-year remove. There's so much we don't know about Europe in these ages, but we do know that at 3pm on March 11, 1550, the laborer John Rusey tripped over a cart-rut in the road and landed on his own knife, stabbing himself to a depth of 2 inches and dying there. It's almost like you were there...
There are many archives across Europe with boxes upon boxes of old documents, 100's of years old, that nobody simply has had time to look at. If it weren't for a 'History of the Law in the Southern Netherlands' course I took as part of my law degree (and frankly, I took it because the schedule fit better around my job than other courses), I would never even have known about the archive near me. The professor took us there one day, we signed in, got given some latex gloves and were each handed a box of documents from the medieval archives of the city (by one of the librarians). They were all old court cases, and the assignment was basically to look through them for a case that looked interesting, try to read it, and write a report on the judicial organization and procedural rules in it.
Anyway, to get to your point: yes it's awesome reading these old accounts of seemingly mundane things, so many years ago, sometimes references places or houses that still exist. I don't think I could ever be a historian and do it for years on end, but just sniffing around a bit (and in a repurposed medieval church, with the complete surroundings just breathing that 'The name of the Rose' feeling, in my case) is, in a way, intellectually exhilarating (who would have thought anyone would ever describe reading 500 year old court cases 'exhilarating'...).
> They were all old court cases, and the assignment was basically to look through them for a case that looked interesting, try to read it, and write a report on the judicial organization and procedural rules in it.
That sounds like a really interesting course! How difficult was it to parse the old Dutch?
Quite difficult TBH. Not only the different spelling, but also that there were lots of different words than we use now for the same thing, and cases where the old word looked like a weird form of something of today but then turned out to be very different; and then all the linguistic embellishment. Instead of saying "x and y happened on date z" (as you would read in today's court transcripts), it would say "and so then it happened that, upon so many days after Easter, when the moon was full, also indicated as the year of the lord so and so and this month, that the horrible event of which we are talking about today too place, where first x was said by person bla", ... - on and on and on. I wonder how they got anything done those days.
If you're into this sort of thing (and know Dutch), a really fun read is "Een notabel boecxken van cokeryen", a Dutch cook book from around 1510. Annotated (translated) version available at http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_not001nota01_01/_not001nota01_01.... . Illustrates the issues above very well.
Neat! I'm learning Dutch and can understand some of what's in that old cookbook, still not easy though. Kind of surprised at all of the spices it calls for...must have been food eaten by the wealthy. The old Dutch in that book looks a little like Frisian, as far as I can tell.
If you like this kind of stuff, there's a Dutch researcher who maintains a blog about old books, many of which are in old Dutch: https://medievalbooks.nl/ Sadly not updated in over a year, but there are a lot of gems in the archives.
I absolutely love that feeling. The thrill of parting the veil between our time and another and looking into some dead person's eyes and really seeing them as a fellow human.
Another favorite is the diary of Samuel Pepys. It's just so touching human and specific. Like when the Great Fire of London breaks out and he desperately tries to save the parmesan cheese he bought on his vacation in Italy:
The fire coming on in that narrow streete, on both sides, with infinite fury. Sir W. Batten not knowing how to remove his wine, did dig a pit in the garden, and laid it in there; and I took the opportunity of laying all the papers of my office that I could not otherwise dispose of. And in the evening Sir W. Pen and I did dig another, and put our wine in it; and I my Parmazan cheese...
Mrs. Turner and her husband supped with my wife and I at night, in the office; upon a shoulder of mutton from the cook’s, without any napkin or any thing, in a sad manner, but were merry. Only now and then walking into the garden, and saw how horridly the sky looks, all on a fire in the night, was enough to put us out of our wits; and, indeed, it was extremely dreadful, for it looks just as if it was at us; and the whole heaven on fire.
If you love this human perspective from other Eras, I highly recommend La Cite Antique (The Ancient City: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Cit%C3%A9_antique) which takes you back how the everyday life of Roman citizens was like. Much better than movies of dull History books.
There's a great story in the Jamestown Museum about how John Smith almost died from stepping on a stingray.
>> When exploring and mapping the Chesapeake bay
Smith waded in the shallow water. Smith was stung by a sting ray.
The barb in the ray’s lashing tail pierced his arm. Smith got so very sick, thinking he would not survive this …his men dug him a grave. But a doctor applied heat to the wound and by this Smith was saved. Feeling better that evening, he ate the stingray for supper that night.
When he drew up his map,… he marked the spot on his map where he almost met death “Stingray Point”
This site made me realize what a powerful effect fonts have on our perception of a text. I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading the words of modern historians and not a scan of some 400-year-old document.
Agreed. But it also made me search for the setting to disable web fonts. I understand why they're using that font but if I've a choice I'll read like it's at least 1980 (I think I got an Arial). Reenabling them now.
Hmm, I agree the font was annoying, but it not unreadable. Indeed it is much easier to read than the grey-on-grey text that you often find on modern sites.
And contra the parent comment, it doesn't look like a scan of a centuries old document -- it just looks a scan of a book from the mid 20th century.
I've read lots of such books, and while some have better typography than others, they are all quite easy to read. I think we have a habit of conflating "this is ugly I wish it were different" with "I can't read this".
Lots of things hamper the legibility of that site. Poor font choice, pure black text on pure white, long line length, narrow leading, small size. Looking at the site header it appears the typography decisions were based on decoration instead of legibility.
I recently visited Duncan Mill, a steam powered saw mill, which runs a couple of times a year in Northern California to demonstrate how redwoods were cut into lumber in the the late 18th century.The number of ways you could die or get maimed in an instant was pretty astounding.
Still that way in some places I've been. Construction in places like Mexico doesn't seem to have anything like OSHA, at least anything that's having an influence. Lots of concrete cutting with unguarded blades, loose clothing, no eye protection, etc.
Or check out this one in China, forging huge flanges in the street with very little safeguards. https://youtu.be/yE8A6uMYXmw
Yep, spemt three months backpacking through Central America. Even as a tourist, you sort of start accepting that life is dangerous after a while. Or you just don't leave the hotel.
Within the last twenty-five years I have seen men holding on with one arm while operating a jackhammer with the other hand to cut through the cornice of a building in order to clear the way for a demolition chute. Other men about the same time were operating power saws on pipes propped up on a roof with gravel, and had no eye protection. This was in downtown Washington, DC/
Life is still very dangerous. Go to any less developed country with relaxed health and safety regulations, and you'll see some crazy shit.
Saw a guy in Fiji using the tip of a chainsaw to cut a notch in a beam. He was wearing flip-flops, and had no hearing protection, not to mention cutting things with the tip of a chainsaw is a bad idea, even with proper protective equipment.
Even in more developed countries, there are still plenty of very dangerous industries, such as logging. Farmers are notorious for poor H&S as well, it's a struggle here in New Zealand to get them to wear helmets while on bikes and put rollbars on quads. I've seen plenty of dodgy shit go down on building sites as well, despite attempts by Worksafe to wrap everything in cotton wool.
So mental! I can't imagine the heat in there, especially in the summer! Those turbine fans are just blowing hot air around. I went to India in March and it was 90+ everyday.
> Life was amazingly dangerous until very recently...
This is what drives me crazy about the outcry about unsafe working conditions in the developing world. I worked in a lumber mill just like that video and mills like that are still operating in Canada.
Yes, we in the West want the developing world to improve conditions, but let's also keep in mind we were just about as bad within living memory.
Yes this was before they brought in poison bottles [1]. We take for granted the ability to turn on the light when trying to find the right bottle in the dark.
Well, this certainly puts things into perspective. It's pretty amazing how many people died just from lack of knowledge of either the nature of, or remedy to, their illness.
I find these oddly comforting. Yes, fate can still strike at any time, but many of these injuries are now so much more preventable and treatable.
Especially fascinating are the cases where modern life is significantly more or less dangerous. You might be more likely to be killed by a house fire or stairwell fall now, but less by animals (simply due to reduced contact) or drowning (because so many more people can swim, or even perform CPR).
I don't think you're anywhere near more likely to be killed in a house fire today. Fires are much less common, owing to much fewer naked flames (for heat and light) and much less fuel lying around to sustain them. And even when the fire does happen, modern houses are much less flammable (less wood is used, and the wood that is used is often treated, carpets, drapes, furniture etc is made from flame retardant materials) so fires spread more slowly. Also, smoke alarms will help you discover the fire in time and get out, which you can generally do, because modern building codes ensure multiple exits.
I'm pretty sure something similar is true for stairwell falls and drownings would probably be tempered by the prevalence of lifeguards in popular swimming spots, and signage warning of particular dangerous areas.
I heard that in ancient Moscow, house fires were so frequent, that there were markets of pre-half-built houses for sale outside the town. They weren't that expensive (wood was cheap), wo that if your house was burnt it was not really that big of a deal (still big, but not the end of the life).
The biggest threat was massive blaze. If some house caught a fire, no one would be putting it out, instead, everyone would be breaking other nearby houses, to contain the fire.
“May 2014. House fires were comparatively less deadly in the sixteenth century than they are today. Even conflagrations that consumed whole neighbourhoods claimed few victims, for wooden houses burnt readily but slowly and few had many storeys.”
What I assumed they meant is that while your cause of death is less likely to be a building fire, in the event of a building fire you may be more likely to be killed. That is, the absolute probability has gone down, but the conditional probability has gone up. I dunno about the truth of it, but I found it an interesting thing to consider.
