I'm writing a bit about literacy in Medieval Europe and just wanted to share the lovely writings 7 year old Onfim who lived in the 13th century left behind.
He wrote stories, made drawings and did his homework on birch bark. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onfim
Onfim left us only 17 bits of writing/drawing, but over 1100 birch writings have been found since the 1950s and new ones are still being found in and around Veliky Novgorod in Russia.
Written by common people about daily things.
Homework but also shopping lists, complaints, etc.
A note from a father to his son;
Send me a shirt, towel, trousers, reins, and, for my sister, send fabric. If I am alive, I will pay for it.”
A chap called Mikita wrote a birch bark letter to Anna between 1280 and 1300 that said:
“Marry me. I want you, and you me.”
"Feshko Jurgia beats his forehead. Need salt urgently, I did not receive salt from you for two years; yes come."
Oh Boris, so forgetful.
"From Boris to Nastasya. As this letter comes, send me a man on a stallion, because I have a lot to do here. Yes came the shirt - forgot the shirt. ”
Oh no Boris!
"A bow from Nastasya to the gentlemen of my brothers. I have Boris [no longer] alive. How, gentlemen, take care of me and my children?"
Anyway, as you can imagine having such a rich source of common people writing about common stuff changes our perspective on a few things.
Source of translations and images is this excellent site; gramoty.ru/birchbark/
How does this match the common idea of 99% of Medieval people being illiterate?
Just because most of the writings of the era that survived to this day were fancy books and letters written in Latin doesn't mean there was nothing else out there at the time.
Am I the only one who can almost imagine little Onfim and based on just a few scribbles, notes and drawings has grown to like the little cheeky kid?
He just seems adorable.
"ГИ ПОМОЗИ РАБУ СВОЄМУ ОНѲИМУ"
“Lord, help your servant Onfim!”
I hope little Onfim got the help he needed.
When I was a kid the world was a very different place.
This is what I drew when I was Onfim's age
Interesting link, bunch of Vikings leaving graffiti, quite a lot, suggesting that among a bunch of Vikings at least a few knew how to write.
Language warning; they were Vikings, naughty naughty boys.
Sigh.
An account with half a million followers just tweeted that long debunked 'life in the 1500s' nonsense, 2.2 million people have seen it.
So here we go again...
Recently I spotted a little holiday photo album for sale, usually I'm not interested in them because such photos are generally a bit boring, but I spotted a tiny detail that told me the album was very interesting.
Yes, that V sign.
Let's check the album out together.
Photo 🧵!
The album starts in Dresden, April 10th 1941.
Less then 4 years after the photo was taken this church would be a ruin.
I love old wallpaper sample books, they're quite the treasure trove for set designers, researchers, historians, etc.
So let's look at a few I recently bought, Belgian, 1930s.
It starts nice and calm but then...
Nothing shocking here.
But yes, the first book is all textured paper, you can stroke it and it's lovely.
Some fake tiles, quite impressive, they look and feel real but are just paper and with gold inbetween!
Well, I've seen 'Napoleon' and here's my review.
It's going to be a long one full of complaining about details and of course with tons of spoilers.
You've been warned.
🧵
As usual, I start with the trailer:
Warning;
Although I already know a few mistakes were made, I'm absolutely NOT an expert on the Napoleonic era, so there will be a lot I won't even be noticing to complain about.
So this review could have been EVEN more negative if I knew more about the topic ;)