Medieval History
Daniel Defoe's novel about London's 1665 plague can help us understand new media. No, really.
The plague was abroad. Londoners knew not where it had come from, only that it was upon Holland. "It was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus," Daniel Defoe wrote in the opening of his historical novel, A Journal of the Plague Year.
The book, which many read as something like non-fiction, bore the webby subtitle, being observations or memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665, and bore stamps of authenticity -- it was "Written by a citizen who remained all the while in London" -- and intrigue, having "Never [been] made public before."
Which, as a journalist of the web era, made me think: that Defoe knew how to gin up some pageviews! And in fact, Defoe did. (If you can't see the translation to the headline argot du jour, allow me: 73 Amazing and Horrible Things That Happened During the Plague, From Someone Who Saw Them With His Own Two Eyes. And no, I didn't count. But the point is: no one's counting.)
Click here to read this article from The Atlantic
- Anthropologist Compares Medieval Lives, Pre- And Post-black Death
Each time Sharon DeWitte takes a 3-foot by 1-foot archival box off the shelf at the Museum of London she hopes it will be heavy. ?Heavy means you know you have a relatively complete skeleton,? said DeWitte, an anthropologist at the University of South...
- Hunting For A Mass Killer In Medieval Graveyards
Beneath the Royal Mint Court, diagonally across the street from the Tower of London, lie 1,800 mute witnesses to the foresight of the city fathers in the year 1348. Recognizing that the Black Death then scourging Europe would inevitably reach London,...
- Black Death Study Lets Rats Off The Hook
Rats weren't the carriers of the plague after all. A study by an archaeologist looking at the ravages of the Black Death in London, in late 1348 and 1349, has exonerated the most famous animal villains in history. "The evidence just isn't there...
- Black Death Came From China, Study Finds
An international team of scientists have concluded that the plague known as the Black Death originated in China over 2600 years ago. In the article, ?Yersinia pestis genome sequencing identifies patterns of global phylogenetic diversity?, which was published...
- Ok, More Medievalism Stuff...
....this one from Douglas Rushkoff, "media ecologist" and author of Life, Inc. In this interview via the Reality Sandwich blog, Rushkoff contrasts the "Dark Ages" with what he sees as our corporate dominated future, and finds the Middle Ages were probably...
Medieval History
When Newspapers Were New, or, How Londoners Got Word of the Plague
The plague was abroad. Londoners knew not where it had come from, only that it was upon Holland. "It was brought, some said from Italy, others from the Levant, among some goods which were brought home by their Turkey fleet; others said it was brought from Candia; others from Cyprus," Daniel Defoe wrote in the opening of his historical novel, A Journal of the Plague Year.
The book, which many read as something like non-fiction, bore the webby subtitle, being observations or memorials of the most remarkable occurrences, as well public as private, which happened in London during the last great visitation in 1665, and bore stamps of authenticity -- it was "Written by a citizen who remained all the while in London" -- and intrigue, having "Never [been] made public before."
Which, as a journalist of the web era, made me think: that Defoe knew how to gin up some pageviews! And in fact, Defoe did. (If you can't see the translation to the headline argot du jour, allow me: 73 Amazing and Horrible Things That Happened During the Plague, From Someone Who Saw Them With His Own Two Eyes. And no, I didn't count. But the point is: no one's counting.)
Click here to read this article from The Atlantic
- Anthropologist Compares Medieval Lives, Pre- And Post-black Death
Each time Sharon DeWitte takes a 3-foot by 1-foot archival box off the shelf at the Museum of London she hopes it will be heavy. ?Heavy means you know you have a relatively complete skeleton,? said DeWitte, an anthropologist at the University of South...
- Hunting For A Mass Killer In Medieval Graveyards
Beneath the Royal Mint Court, diagonally across the street from the Tower of London, lie 1,800 mute witnesses to the foresight of the city fathers in the year 1348. Recognizing that the Black Death then scourging Europe would inevitably reach London,...
- Black Death Study Lets Rats Off The Hook
Rats weren't the carriers of the plague after all. A study by an archaeologist looking at the ravages of the Black Death in London, in late 1348 and 1349, has exonerated the most famous animal villains in history. "The evidence just isn't there...
- Black Death Came From China, Study Finds
An international team of scientists have concluded that the plague known as the Black Death originated in China over 2600 years ago. In the article, ?Yersinia pestis genome sequencing identifies patterns of global phylogenetic diversity?, which was published...
- Ok, More Medievalism Stuff...
....this one from Douglas Rushkoff, "media ecologist" and author of Life, Inc. In this interview via the Reality Sandwich blog, Rushkoff contrasts the "Dark Ages" with what he sees as our corporate dominated future, and finds the Middle Ages were probably...