#historian things

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Today I learned that people in a quiet archive reading room do notice when you inadvertently exclaim the name of a historical person you like whose handwriting you did not expect to find in a stash of barely organised papers.

[chaotic-historian]

Tomorrow, I bravely go forth to do battle with the microfilm scanners at my national library for the first time, and I'd just like to question why, when I had the course "archival use" at university, they did NOT teach us microfilm-wrangling as part of the mandatory curriculum.

Anyway, pray for me

[luckthebard]

I feel for Beau, I too once rolled a Natural 1 at an archive and found nothing I needed in any of the files or documents I pulled for a whole day.

[antique-aesthetique]

Me reading Wilhelmine, margravine of Bayreuth’s memoirs and getting way too involved in 300 year old drama. 

[herald-divine-hell]

I’m that person who makes up random lore for their characters. Like, not typical lore. It’s more like historian lore. History, basically. As if I’m a historian writing about my characters a few centuries later.

“Lord Amayian by all accounts was a mother’s boy, and a ladies man, in a sense. At the age of five, Trevelyan was a constant companion to his lady mother, finding a solace for her maternal protection and sweetness. Trevelyan’s cousin, Laysia once wrote that he ‘often hid behind his mother’s skirts, afraid of strangers, and was a chivilarious little lord, retrieving anything his lady mother or darling sisters requested with an elegance vigor. He was also very flustered among woman who took interest in him. He once spilled a cup of watered wine over Elisen Mallaberry’s, a potential suitor for the young man, dress and profusely apologized while helping her clean. The next morning, he gifted her a fine dress of Orlesian silk, laced with silver, and set with pearls that were wrought along the edges of her corset.”

— Some random historian, probably named Joe.

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Words or phrases I would never have imagined writing in my thesis:

Boston Massacre

Father Christmas

General Sir Henry Clinton

Charles Dance

Disney

A brief run-down of mid-19th century anti-Irish resentment in Great Britain, specifically England

I swear, it all makes sense, and quite likely not in a way or in the context of a topic you'd guess from this list.

[acrossthewavesoftime]

Let's eat Electress Sophia! Let's eat, Electress Sophia! ...When Grammar Saves (Historical) Lives

Reading baroque letters, you have witnessed me raising my eyebrows at the future William III's dubious French orthography (which académiciens then and now probably would love to send William to The Hague for... Joke's on them) and being greatly amused by Liselotte von der Pfalz's crass vocabulary- now get ready for Sophie von Hannover's lack of commata confusing her future editors:

The sentence reads as following in translation: My son Maximilian the Raugraf[2] and five others had found themselves surrounded by a group of Tartars, from whence they luckily escaped.

The footnote reads: [2] That Sophia's son, who was in Austrian services, is called Raugraf is connected to her Palatine ancestry.

[Reference]

Now this is absolute nonsense. Raugraf (m) or Raugräfin (f) was the title conferred onto the illegitimate children of Sophia's brother Karl Ludwig, Elector Palatine. Sophie held lifelong contact with many of her nieces and nephews born on the wrong side of the blanket and was eager to help them find their place in life after the Elector's death whose successor and legitimate son had, contrary to his full sister Liselotte, little love for their half-siblings.

So clearly what's going on here is that Sophie wants to say: My son Maximilian [and] the Raugraf and five others had found themselves surrounded by a group of Tartars, from whence they luckily escaped.

Now Karl Ludwig, Elector Palatine was a busy man in the bedchamber and had 13 children with his partner Louise von Degenfeld, but of their sons, only one was still alive when Sophie wrote her letter in October 1698 (five had died young, and two other brothers, Karl Ludwig and Karl Kasimir died on campaign and drunkely fighting a duel in Wolfenbüttel respectively). Karl Moritz (1670–1702) did indeed fight in the Great Turkish War, so it all adds up.

Grammar saves lives-- and sometimes, history.

Because while little inaccuracies like this are amusing to discover, the very real problem with misinformation of this kind, especially in a respected publication, is that it might be reproduced. Instances like this also serve as an example to examine our literature closely, and to read our sources carefully, particularly where changes in language, vocabulary or grammar may obscure the intended meaning to a modern reader.

[embklitzke]

Musings on historiography

I am, by training, a historian.  I am also an anthropologist and a political scientist, but by far the most formal training, time, and money spent has been as a historian. Yes, I know I’m a writer, too, but that is a state of being, not my degree(s).  But it also does certainly tie into being a historian. Why? Because historians write—and not just a little.  Historians write a lot.  Part of…

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