reading a historical romance novel and reflecting on the way these stories often present woke nobility for the contemporary reader. a big thing is servants. you can’t not have servants in those times but many modern readers think “but I would never have servants. it would be so weird to have servants” and in order to make the protagonists of the story more relatable they are actually friends with the servants. but flip your perspective and think of it from the side of the servants. wouldn’t it be so awful if your boss was always trying to be friends with you. a really common thing you’ll see is the woke baronet having tea in the kitchen with the servants bc he’s not like other baronets. but what if your boss wanted to hang out and talk during your lunch break every day. not so charming when you think about it that way
#okay but now what is the optimal way to be a good boss in this situation i genuinely wanna know#its easy to guess what makes a bad boss or a mid boss. but what is a good boss#specifically in such a highly structured hierarchal situation (via @rainbowroach)
HELLO you are asking questions that literature and poetry THROUGHOUT the middle ages has asked, and it is from this questioning that we derive things like the Codes of Chivalry (which is not "how to treat a noble lady really nice" but is actually "how to be an ethical person when you're rich and you own a horse" and includes such things as "don't run people over with your horse")
In fact I daresay you already know instinctively just from cultural osmosis what a good boss -- a good liege lord -- is and does based on the tropes that have survived to the current day and the kinds of things that get Hugely Praised in things like legends of King Arthur.
A good boss (liege lord) is:
Merciful. He is not having his peasants killed for things like poaching rabbits during a famine. In fact, he is working to mitigate famine. During times of individual hardship, he might negotiate with a peasant for a payment plan on their annual rent.
Patient. He is not impulsive, he does not lose his temper.
Prudent. He makes choices that are thoughtful, considered, conservative (in the sense of not needlessly risky--he's not investing his entire fortune in having everyone plant an unproven crop). He is making sure local infrastructure like roads and public buildings are maintained and kept in good nick.
Gentle. He doesn't haul off and slap a servant or a tenant for breaking a dish or making a mistake. He doesn't abuse animals, his wife or children, or his employees. He doesn't rape the servants.
Generous (both in money and in spirit). He is not extorting the peasants for an amount of rent that is beyond their means, he is not raising taxes every year to cover his own lavish lifestyle. He is paying his servants a living wage (or, if wages are low, he's giving them room/board/clothing to make up the difference). If someone in a tenant's family dies, the lord is sending a gift of condolence, or helping to pay for the funeral, or possibly even ATTENDING the funeral and speaking a few kind words about the deceased, ESPECIALLY if they were a really upstanding and important member of the community. If one of his tenants is gravely sick, the lord is sending a basket of food or paying for a doctor. He is giving charitably (generally this will be, like, a bequest to the church so that they can run a hospital or an orphanage or a school for the local village children).
Pious. This classically means "goes to church, submits with humility to God" but to me this quality is subtextually standing in for "maintaining an ongoing sense of Perspective that HE'S not god, that there are higher powers he is Accountable to, that he too can be Judged, etc, so that he doesn't end up going on a weird fucked up power trip"
Humble. One of the most admiring things you hear about a lord doing in literature and epic poetry is, "He ate off of wooden plates while his followers ate off of gold and silver." Humility isn't about being meek, it's just about not thinking so much of yourself that you turn your nose up and sneer at what "lesser" people do. In other words: Don't be a fucking diva. If your carriage gets stuck in the mud, climb out and help everybody else push, you're not gonna die from getting mud on your shoes.
Condescending. This word has changed wildly in meaning/tone over the last couple centuries -- it's now a rude thing to do (because we've done away with legal social hierarchies, so someone acting like they're lowering themselves to your level IS insulting), but in older times, a high-ranking person "condescending" to a servant was worthy of praise and admiration: it means they were setting aside rank and privilege to speak to them with the easygoing, friendly respect and compassion they'd give a peer. This is things like... Treats those beneath him with courtesy and respect (ie: listens soberly and attentively when one of his servants or tenants comes to complain about a problem). Having a sense of humor and kindness about it when the lord and a servant both come around a corner at the same time and run into each other and the servant gets knocked to the ground and starts babbling apologies--the condescending (positive) lord helps them to their feet with his own hands and cracks a joke to show them that it's ok (as opposed to just walking off without a word or insulting/scolding them). This is also things like trusting a farmer, woodcutter, or artisan to speak with expertise about their own livelihood and taking their advice into consideration if they tell the lord that one of his ideas won't work.
Good boundaries. The ethical liege lord knows that it's normal for the staff to probably be softly bitching about him in private (even with a really good boss, we all grumble from time to time). He's not eavesdropping on them, he's not going into the staff areas where they should reasonably expect to have a degree of privacy, etc.
Righteous and protective of "the weak". The "weak" here doesn't necessarily mean physically weak, this is often used in the sense of someone politically or socially weak, aka The Marginalized -- the poor, the disabled, women, children, the elderly, etc. If a lord sees someone like this being mistreated or abused, he's supposed to step in and put a stop to that.
Committed to reciprocity. In a highly hierarchical system like feudalism, every person (from the lowest peasant all the way up to the crown prince) legally OWES their liege lord certain things (taxes, labor, service, loyalty, etc). A good liege remembers and takes very seriously the idea that this should be a balanced and reciprocal relationship -- in other words, he owes something BACK. Feudalism is modeled very strongly on the family system: If children owe their parents obedience and service, then parents owe their children care and protection. This still applies when the "child" is a farmer and the "parent" is a local baron. Or when the "child" is a duke and the "parent" is the king.
Basically, we get so caught up in the aesthetics of nobility that we forget that it literally is a managerial position that comes with responsibilities that were... very similar back in the day to the same ones we have now. Humans have not changed all that much. At the end of the day, a really good boss in the 1400s versus in one from the 2020s displays most of the same qualities of personality, even if the details of execution are different.
The next question is, of course, "well, but this theoretical liege lord is HIGHLY idealized -- how often did that actually HAPPEN? Wasn't it more likely that everyone was exploited all the time?" and to that I say: Well, maybe. But again, I don't think humans have changed all that much. Just like the bosses of today, there's a SPECTRUM: A really really good boss is rare and precious and one that you tell stories about for years after you've left that job, but a truly, genuinely, homicidally nightmarish boss is also pretty rare. Most bosses are sort of meh -- they have their good moments, they have their shitty moments, but they're tolerable and you can get along with them well enough to do your job, and then you roll your eyes at them behind their back. Generally, humans don't take outright exploitation lying down. Being a bad boss in the historical period is how you get peasant uprisings and revolts, and you know that to be true because your parents raised you with that knowledge, so unless you are very stupid or inbred or an egomaniac, there is literal personal incentive to at minimum be a Tolerable liege lord. And that means hitting at least SOME of the above bullet points.
TL;DR: In the words of Honore de Balzac, "Everything I have just told you can be summarized by an old word: noblesse oblige!"
(for more discussions of the ethics of fealty and what it means to be a good boss when you are an exquisitely beautiful twink of a prince with a hot beefy bodyguard.... [fingerguns] read A Taste of Gold and Iron)
I read etiquette and homemaking guides from the 1800s mostly because they're a FASCINATING insight into cultural norms that we often don't think about. I honestly really recommend people crack one of these open at least once--it goes way beyond, like, "what to wear to a ball!!!"
The best ones have advice on decor, how to select high-quality furniture, childrearing, fashion, etc--from a contemporary perspective, and the things the authors feel the need to clarify vs the wild shit that will just casually mention like it's something everyone knows and agrees on is REALLY revealing of the culture and how it's shifted.
And while a lot of the advice is WILDLY bigoted or just outright funny, you'd be surprised how much of it is...just genuinely timeless, and shockingly compassionate.
They ALSO, as a writer, have INVALUABLE resources--because, again, they're talking about things that are so MUNDANE that a lot of the time nobody really sat down to formally document what normal, everyday people thought or cared about--because that's boring! But a book written to provide advice and information to, say, a young woman who's never run her own home before? You can fully expect an entire chapter dedicated to The Types Of Oven, and which features are useful and worth spending money on, and which features are a huge hassle to clean and a waste of space, and what to spend that money on instead.
And like. As a writer who frequently works in the 1800s? Fuck inflation calculators, this is the kind of thing I need. This is absolutely priceless.
Now that being said.
My current favorite 'etiquette guide' in the world is actually like....70% purely practical advice, written by a gentleman the groupchat has affectionately dubbed History's Most Autistic Man In The World, and thank god they didn't have Aderall back then
Because the AuDHD is strong in this one and as a result, in addition to the deeply practical and useful everyday reference points, we also have:
whenever i look into a historical monarch who doesn’t get talked about much and is just kind of a blank spot in my understanding of the historical narrative, 95% of the time what i find is pure white hot blistering capability. a pencil pusher for the ages. a 39 year reign with no more than three hours of sleep a night. there aren’t any good stories from his reign because he systematically caught and stopped all catastrophic good stories before they could start. you shrimply must respect it
A Book of Creatures by @a-book-of-creatures doesn't update these days but is another thing along these lines, really huge, fully illustrated all by the author and cites all sources
it's so crazy too bc i'll be like "this phrase/practice is being touted as ancient knowledge with a secret unbroken lineage, but it was quite literally made up in the 20th century. like we can trace it back to its very inception in like 1961." and someone will be like "that can't be true because my grandmother taught it to me." and i'm like yes your grandmother was 20 in 1961.
JSTOR Articles on the History of Witchcraft, Witch Trials, and Folk Magic Beliefs
This is a partial of of articles on these subjects that can be found in the JSTOR archives. This is not exhaustive - this is just the portion I've saved for my own studies (I've read and referenced about a third of them so far) and I encourage readers and researchers to do their own digging. I recommend the articles by Ronald Hutton, Owen Davies, Mary Beth Norton, Malcolm Gaskill, Michael D. Bailey, and Willem de Blecourt as a place to start.
If you don't have personal access to JSTOR, you may be able to access the archive through your local library, university, museum, or historical society.
Full text list of titles below the cut:
'Hatcht up in Villanie and Witchcraft': Historical, Fiction, and Fantastical Recuperations of the Witch Child, by Chloe Buckley
'I Would Have Eaten You Too': Werewolf Legends in the Flemish, Dutch and German Area, by Willem de Blecourt
'The Divels Special Instruments': Women and Witchcraft before the Great Witch-hunt, by Karen Jones and Michael Zell
'The Root is Hidden and the Material Uncertain': The Challenges of Prosecuting Witchcraft in Early Modern Venice, by Jonathan Seitz
'Your Wife Will Be Your Biggest Accuser': Reinforcing Codes of Manhood at New England Witch Trials, by Richard Godbeer
A Family Matter: The CAse of a Witch Family in an 18th-Century Volhynian Town, by Kateryna Dysa
A Note on the Survival of Popular Christian Magic, by Peter Rushton
A Note on the Witch-Familiar in Seventeenth Century England, by F.H. Amphlett Micklewright
African Ideas of Witchcraft, by E.G. Parrinder
Aprodisiacs, Charms, and Philtres, by Eleanor Long
Charmers and Charming in England and Wales from the Eighteenth to the Twentieth Century, by Owen Davies
Charming Witches: The 'Old Religion' and the Pendle Trial, by Diane Purkiss
Demonology and Medicine in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by Sona Rosa Burstein
Denver Tries A Witch, by Margaret M. Oyler
Devil's Stones and Midnight Rites: Megaliths, Folklore, and Contemporary Pagan Witchcraft, by Ethan Doyle White
Edmund Jones and the Pwcca'r Trwyn, by Adam N. Coward
Essex County Witchcraft, by Mary Beth Norton
From Sorcery to Witchcraft: Clerical Conceptions of Magic in the Later Middle Ages, by Michael D. Bailey
German Witchcraft, by C. Grant Loomis
Getting of Elves: Healing, Witchcraft and Fairies in the Scottish Witchcraft Trials, by Alaric Hall
Ghost and Witch in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries, by Gillian Bennett
Ghosts in Mirrors: Reflections of the Self, by Elizabeth Tucker
Healing Charms in Use in England and Wales 1700-1950, by Owen Davies
How Pagan Were Medieval English Peasants?, by Ronald Hutton
Invisible Men: The Historian and the Male Witch, by Lara Apps and Andrew Gow
Johannes Junius: Bamberg's Famous Male Witch, by Lara Apps and Andrew Gow
Knots and Knot Lore, by Cyrus L. Day
Learned Credulity in Gianfrancesco Pico's Strix, by Walter Stephens
Literally Unthinkable: Demonological Descriptions of Male Witches, by Lara Apps and Andrew Gow
Magical Beliefs and Practices in Old Bulgaria, by Louis Petroff
Maleficent Witchcraft in Britian since 1900, by Thomas Waters
Masculinity and Male Witches in Old and New England, 1593-1680, by E.J. Kent
Methodism, the Clergy, and the Popular Belief in Witchcraft and Magic, by Owen Davies
Modern Pagan Festivals: A Study in the Nature of Tradition, by Ronald Hutton
Monstrous Theories: Werewolves and the Abuse of History, by Willem de Blecourt
Neapolitan Witchcraft, by J.B. Andrews and James G. Frazer
New England's Other Witch-Hunt: The Hartford Witch-Hunt of the 1660s and Changing Patterns in Witchcraft Prosecution, by Walter Woodward
Newspapers and the Popular Belief in Witchcraft and Magic in the Modern Period, by Owen Davies
Occult Influence, Free Will, and Medical Authority in the Old Bailey, circa 1860-1910, by Karl Bell
Paganism and Polemic: The Debate over the Origins of Modern Pagan Witchcraft, by Ronald Hutton
Plants, Livestock Losses and Witchcraft Accusations in Tudor and Stuart England, by Sally Hickey
Polychronican: Witchcraft History and Children, interpreting England's Biggest Witch Trial, 1612, by Robert Poole
Publishing for the Masses: Early Modern English Witchcraft Pamphlets, by Carla Suhr
Rethinking with Demons: The Campaign against Superstition in Late Medieval and Early Modern Europe from a Cognitive Perspective, by Andrew Keitt
Seasonal Festivity in Late Medieval England, Some Further Reflections, by Ronald Hutton
Secondary Targets: Male Witches on Trial, by Lara Apps and Andrew Gow
Some Notes on Modern Somerset Witch-Lore, by R.L. Tongue
Some Notes on the History and Practice of Witchcraft in the Eastern Counties, by L.F. Newman
Some Seventeenth-Century Books of Magic, by K.M. Briggs
Stones and Spirits, by Jane P. Davidson and Christopher John Duffin
Superstitions, Magic, and Witchcraft, by Jeffrey R. Watt
The 1850s Prosecution of Gerasim Fedotov for Witchcraft, by Christine D. Worobec
The Catholic Salem: How the Devil Destroyed a Saint's Parish (Mattaincourt, 1627-31), by William Monter
The Celtic Tarot and the Secret Tradition: A Study in Modern Legend Making, by Juliette Wood
The Cult of Seely Wights in Scotland, by Julian Goodare
The Decline of Magic: Challenge and Response in Early Enlightenment England, by Michael Hunter
The Devil-Worshippers at the Prom: Rumor-Panic as Therapeutic Magic, by Bill Ellis
The Devil's Pact: Diabolic Writing and Oral Tradition, by Kimberly Ball
The Discovery of Witches: Matthew Hopkins' Defense of his Witch-hunting Methods, by Sheilagh Ilona O'Brien
The Disenchantment of Magic: Spells, Charms, and Superstition in Early European Witchcraft Literature, by Michael D. Bailey
The Epistemology of Sexual Trauma in Witches' Sabbaths, Satanic Ritual Abuse, and Alien Abduction Narratives, by Joseph Laycock
The European Witchcraft Debate and the Dutch Variant, by Marijke Gijswijt-Hofstra
The Flying Phallus and the Laughing Inquisitor: Penis Theft in the Malleus Maleficarum, by Moira Smith
The Framework for Scottish Witch-Hunting for the 1590s, by Julian Goodare
The Imposture of Witchcraft, by Rossell Hope Robbins
The Last Witch of England, by J.B. Kingsbury
The Late Lancashire Witches: The Girls Next Door, by Meg Pearson
The Malefic Unconscious: Gender, Genre, and History in Early Antebellum Witchcraft Narratives, by Lisa M. Vetere
The Mingling of Fairy and Witch Beliefs in Sixteenth and Seventeenth Century Scotland, by J.A. MacCulloch
The Nightmare Experience, Sleep Paralysis, and Witchcraft Accusations, by Owen Davies
The Pursuit of Reality: Recent Research into the History of Witchcraft, by Malcolm Gaskill
The Reception of Reginald Scot's Discovery of Witchcraft: Witchcraft, Magic, and Radical Religions, by S.F. Davies
The Role of Gender in Accusations of Witchcraft: The Case of Eastern Slovenia, by Mirjam Mencej
The Scottish Witchcraft Act, by Julian Goodare
The Werewolves of Livonia: Lycanthropy and Shape-Changing in Scholarly Texts, 1550-1720, by Stefan Donecker
The Wild Hunter and the Witches' Sabbath, by Ronald Hutton
The Winter Goddess: Percht, Holda, and Related Figures, by Lotta Motz
The Witch's Familiar and the Fairy in Early Modern England and Scotland, by Emma Wilby
The Witches of Canewdon, by Eric Maple
The Witches of Dengie, by Eric Maple
The Witches' Flying and the Spanish Inquisitors, or How to Explain Away the Impossible, by Gustav Henningsen
To Accommodate the Earthly Kingdom to Divine Will: Official and Nonconformist Definitions of Witchcraft in England, by Agustin Mendez
Unwitching: The Social and Magical Practice in Traditional European Communities, by Mirjam Mencej
Urbanization and the Decline of Witchcraft: An Examination of London, by Owen Davies
Weather, Prayer, and Magical Jugs, by Ralph Merrifield
Witchcraft and Evidence in Early Modern England, by Malcolm Gaskill
Witchcraft and Magic in the Elizabethan Drama by H.W. Herrington
Witchcraft and Magic in the Rochford Hundred, by Eric Maple
Witchcraft and Old Women in Early Modern Germany, by Alison Rowlands
Witchcraft and Sexual Knowledge in Early Modern England, by Julia M. Garrett
Witchcraft and Silence in Guillaume Cazaux's 'The Mass of Saint Secaire', by William G. Pooley
Witchcraft and the Early Modern Imagination, by Robin Briggs
Witchcraft and the Western Imagination by Lyndal Roper
Witchcraft Belief and Trals in Early Modern Ireland, by Andrew Sneddon
Witchcraft Deaths, by Mimi Clar
Witchcraft Fears and Psychosocial Factors in Disease, by Edward Bever
Witchcraft for Sale, by T.M. Pearce
Witchcraft in Denmark, by Gustav Henningsen
Witchcraft in Germany, by Taras Lukach
Witchcraft in Kilkenny, by T. Crofton Croker
Witchcraft in Anglo-American Colonies, by Mary Beth Norton
Witchcraft in the Central Balkans I: Characteristics of Witches, by T.P. Vukanovic
Witchcraft in the Central Balkans II: Protection Against Witches, by T.P. Vukanovic
Witchcraft Justice and Human Rights in Africa, Cases from Malawi, by Adam Ashforth
Witchcraft Magic and Spirits on the Border of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, by S.P. Bayard
Witchcraft Persecutions in the Post-Craze Era: The Case of Ann Izzard of Great Paxton, 1808, by Stephen A. Mitchell
Witchcraft Prosecutions and the Decline of Magic, by Edward Bever
Witchcraft, by Ray B. Browne
Witchcraft, Poison, Law, and Atlantic Slavery, by Diana Paton
Witchcraft, Politics, and Memory in Seventeeth-Century England, by Malcolm Gaskill
Witchcraft, Spirit Possession and Heresy, by Lucy Mair
Witchcraft, Women's Honour and Customary Law in Early Modern Wales, by Sally Parkin
Witches and Witchbusters, by Jacqueline Simpson
Witches, Cunning Folk, and Competition in Denmark, by Timothy R. Tangherlini
Bringing this back around for people who want free research material.
Also, since the time of the original post, JSTOR added a free membership option that allows users to access something like 100 articles a month. (Thanks @jstor!)
Gloves are not best practice for handling rare books! We follow the guidelines followed also by the Smithsonian Institution and the British Library among many others.
Basically there are very few instances where we might wear gloves, and it would probably be to protect us (in the case of, for example, bindings made with arsenic) and not to protect books.
Photographs and museum artifacts have different rules around gloves! But we only handle books on our channel.
it’s clean, dry hands for textiles, too, in my experience. for very similar reasons- gloves can impede fine motor control, which could result in accidental damage. also, touch goes a long way towards identifying blended fabrics or those that might otherwise be uncertain by appearance alone
as someone who seldom works with documents and more often with other collections objects, I’ve really only had to wear gloves when handling metal or leather. and my orgs tend to use nitrile gloves more than cotton, anyway
(interestingly, I’ve been told in the past that photos of me holding certain objects aren’t suitable for our Instagram because I’m not wearing gloves. even when it’s an object for which bare hands are Best Practice, just because the public expects gloves and will freak out. Reality Is Unrealistic.)
I like the way the flowchart suggests that it’s ok to handle rare books with gloves on if you’re also currently performing a medical procedure.
“Scalpel.” I say. The surgical tech hands me the scalpel, and I make three tiny, precise incisions in the patient’s left kidney.
“Tome.” I say, and the tech holds up the ancient book, bound in unidentifiable leather. I carefully turn the pages with one viscera-stained glove until I reach the spell I’m looking for, and I begin my dark work.
Ok, but like
Aren’t there books whose covers were coloured with toxic chemicals? I heard that some books with green covers made before a certain point in time have to be handled with rubber gloves because the colour green was made with cyanide. Is that just a myth?
@duskform64 Yes, that’s true! It’s one of the only times you’d wear gloves (I mentioned it far above, but the thread is now very long so it’s easy to miss). The green covers in particular are made with arsenic. I wore gloves once when handling a manuscript (written in the late 19th century, but medieval in style) where the parchment pages were coated with white lead.
(a few minutes later) I found it! The manuscript is @waltersartmuseum W.934, Clothilde Missal, made by Clothilde Coulaux in 1906. (It’s so cool)
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