Early Modern Europe was a paper age - a first period of paper usages. Especially managing information became a paper business as the painting "The Lawyer's Office" (1628) from Pieter de Bloot @rijksmuseumt1p.de/1awb highlights. A meta thread for #paperhistory. 1/x
As I have highlighted in earlier threads like this one (
), paper was from the fourteenth century onwards increasingly being used for more and more communication flows. Hello inky paper states and letter writing humans, here comes the printing industry.
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The artifact paper became more and more present in Europe, for example in schools as I have shed light on here:
And the demand grew and grew and grew. More paper was used, for writing, for printing, and for wrapping purposes.
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What we call the book culture, was a paper wrestling and consuming activity of writing, printing, reading, and storing paper. Blank sheets, printed books, small prints, it was all part of a new material culture of paper flows.
Have a look:
Some of these characteristic paper flows can seen on the painting from 1628: you see record keeping practices, writing, folding, storing of papers, waste papers lying around, and books waiting to be used. Entering a lawyer's office was walking into a paper space.
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Let's start with the waste papers lying around at the floor. paper was being used, and often thrown away after usage. Wherever paper was used, waste paper could also be found.
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These pieces of a paper sheets give us a hint to the material life of hand-made paper in early modern Europe: it was produced, it was used, and it was recycled - often to fresh 'new' paper. And there is a quill lying next to the paper. Maybe a frustrated writer?
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Paper broadsides or broadsheets glued to the walls or furniture were not uncommon. In a lawyer's office they often announced things, or explained service prices or gave other advise. The two in the painting seem to be carrying script, printed words on paper. A poster world.
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Writing is an information managing practice, not only in a secretary world. The highlighted persons are writing for money, in big books and on paper sheets (drafts, letters). They needed training for their texts, and certain materials: ink, pen or quill, and lots of papers. 9/x
Using papers had consequences. Where to store a record-keeping business like a lawyer's office? This office decided, like many secretaries and lawyer at the time, to use document bags - literally filled with paper. These bags hang also in administration buildings.
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Well, this is not a perfectly organized shelf. You see paper waiting, old and new alike, bound books, smaller paper sheets, unbound books. Storing paper was tricky.
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Let's focus on the next paper mess on the painting. You see bound paper books surrounded by loose sheets of different qualities and formats, you see a bundle of letters, you see layers of papers in a floating hierachy. Storing loose papers was messy.
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Paper needed to be purchased in great numbers and regularly, especially offices like the one in the painting needed steadily incoming paper flows. And these paper flows of fresh sheets, as will be shown soon, came from the paper trade. Have a look:
The incoming paper flows to offices came in units of the paper trade: from single sheet to, for example, reams of about 500 sheets. These fresh sheets came in dozens of different qualities and formats, and you had to order wisely. Some of these fresh sheets can be seen here. 14/x
Let's focus on the fresh reams and sheets waiting (next to old papers and bound books). You see two reams here, covered with ream wrappers, and you see the sheets being folded to get them transported.
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Fresh sheets needed storage spaces, and sometimes the fresh sheets were just waiting and temporarily stored on the writing desk. Secretary work in a lawyer's office was often fast, and paper needed to be handy, as highligted here:
This is another example of waiting fresh sheets, folded after manufacture for transport purposes. These sheets seem almost forgotten on the shelf. Poor papers.
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Old books had their reselling markets, as indicated here, for example:
But what happened with all these early modern papers beside printed books? While some were being recycled most old papers were used for wrapping purposes.
18/18. The End.
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A scene of paper management and usages: an European early modern tax office was full of papers. Fresh paper sheets, old paper sheets, printed papers, handwritten papers, waste papers, etc. Let's have a deeper look, #paperhistory. A next thread, 1/x
Managing information became a paper business in Early Modern Europe. The expanding administration practices made secretaries, lawyer's offices, tax offices, etc. And they ran on paper, had to store paper, and deal with paper. It was a paper world.
So much paper in this 1665 painting from Cornelis N. Gijsbrechts. You see an open cupboard door, as art history labelled the image, but what you also see: prints, letters, a broadside, an almanac, stored unused paper sheets. Early Modern Europe was a paper age. A
thread, part 1.
This painting of late seventeenth century echoes the availability and usages of paper in Europe. By at least the fifteenth century, paper was increasingly used in more and more individual and public contexts. Have a look: brill.com/view/book/edco…
Part 2 of the thread.
Let's start with the letters. Writing letters, corresponding, was a thing in Europe. Managing your business or scholarly world, wrestling with administrative work, news transmission, and much more, all this was a paper using practice. You see folded and opened letters. Part 3.
The Notary is a painting of mid-sixteenth century by Marinus van Reymerswaele. What we see is secretary work with paper: record keeping practices, writing, folding, storing.
A thread for #paperhistory and #bookhistory.
Notaries needed offices in early modern Europe, because they provided paper businesses: they used papers as a general service. In fact, producing evidence in a lawsauit is a paper practice. First things first: writing on paper on a regular basis is the main office work.
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Let's focus on what writing was: a paper using literate practice that required - apart from paper - some more special materials, most importantly ink, an inkhorn, and a quill.
This printed image appeared as one of the 1680s media reactions to the ongoing military tensions between Christian European states and the Muslim Ottoman Empire. #mediahistory#bookhistory
Source: t1p.de/5ram
Copperplate print "Ein Kalb mit einem Türcken Kopf", 1683.
Whenever the general conflict and their military campaigns heated up in the seventeenth-century, media flows about Ottomans ("Türcken") found their way into print in Christian Europe. Broadsides and pamphlets, even a German newspaper devoted to the topic was published these days.
The depiction of an encountered Christian threat as a news-worthy (and good-selling) deformed animal or even “monster” followed in response to assumed news-buyer demand by economic-driven publishers. Early modern media coverage of relevant news events was in its core a business.
Why do we call early modern Europe a paper age? Well, let's have a look at the hints given on this painting from early seventeenth-century by Jan Lievens. Source: t1p.de/of6z (Alte Pinakothek, München).
Let's start with this instrument, almost hidden, but important for paper usages: the quill. More precisely: the feather quill, often a goose feather prepared for writing. Nota bene: the word 'pen' derives from penna, Latin for feather. No quill, no fun at the secretary.
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Writing letters and records was not only a content managing information battle, it was a material business too. In order to use a quill you needed ink. Your pen/quill would have to be refreshed constantly with ink. This inkwell reminds us of the material conditions of writing. 3/
We will build an online reference work for the annually-published Early Modern German writing calendar, the #Schreibkalender, funded by @dfg_public and in cooperation with the "AG Digitale Forschungsdaten und Forschungsinformationen" @UniFAU.
While being a characteristic part of the contemporary media ensemble in the German-speaking areas of Europe, the #Schreibkalender was produced from its beginning in 1540 in high quantities and reached very large audiences. #bookhistory#mediahistory
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The #Schreibkalender was a paper-based material artefact resulting from complex and specialized publishing and printing processes, and also a document of handwritten interaction. Within the typical dual content of the Kalendarium (containing astronomical information and ...