A note on terminology, and an addendum (and correction) to my PhD thesis 1. How did I miss that? Doing research, it’s easy to find yourself going down rabbit holes, chasing answers that seem to always elude your grasp. You do your best, but still have to resign yourself to unsatisfactory results. In my case, […]
Category Archives: PhD
Letterlocking: How did you fold a letter in the early modern period and what did it mean?
First impressions are important. When I receive mail – physical items by post, that is – simply the size and shape of the envelope tells me something about the sender. A5-sized envelopes (well, C5-sized, but you know what I mean; ditto below) tend to be bills or notes from the bank, A6 and smaller are […]
Editing is Hell, and normalization is an illusion
As a procrastinatory excursion, here are some thoughts about editing historical texts. Rather than an insightful comment on editorial philosophy, the following stems from practical matters and contains nitty-gritty details, and is not written in conversation with other editors (sorry). I’m sure everything I say here has been said before, but repetitio etc. 1. Why normalization […]
On the numbering and foliation of the Cecil Papers
While discussing the provenance of the manuscripts in my PhD edition, delving into the histories of various collections and repositories, I ran somewhat off on a tangent when writing about the Cecil Papers. Turns out that the foliation in the Cecil Papers is problematic, and references to documents in the Cecil Papers can be obscure. […]
“I like not these gold-makers”
I haue had ferther conferrence with the Scotsman / which came from madrid 15 dais past, he sayeth he hath Letters from my lord Ambassador and that his lordshipp gaue hym fyve hvndred Crowns per order from his majestie of England /. and that an vnckell he hath in madrid gaue hym fyve hvndred Crowns […]
Ahh, procrastination
Where doth time fly? That is the question. Although here are two answers to where some of my time this month has gone (to my shame). – the other day, I spent most of the afternoon chasing after an obscure geographical location on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, only to realize in the […]
Rabble of Mac Rebels
Thomas Wilson, writing to Sir Robert Cecil in March 1604 from Spain, describes the Irishmen in Spain (spelling and punctuation modernised): “Besides this Mac Williams here is a great sort of other Macs and macaques as Mac Sweeny, Mac Shannon (or ‘Mac a shame on him’), Maurice Mac-I-know-not-who, Mac an Earl, Mac a devil, & […]
Why am I doing this again?
I cannot claim to be an organized person who follows through agendas to their logical conclusions. Instead, more often than not, I find myself running down tangential paths, chasing unicorns or lemurs or hunches of inklings of ticklings of possibilities. Pots of gold at the end of rainbows, that kind of thing. Recently, as part […]
more on the vexing matter of assigning dates to documents
TNA SP 94/12 ff.144-147 is a 4-page document entitled: “Note of my letters of aduertisments from spayne, Italy & other parts from Jan 1605 vntill [missing]” In other words, it is a list of letters received during 1605. It was compiled by Thomas Wilson, secretary to Sir Robert Cecil, in charge of intelligencing relating to […]
Lady Day (and the vexing matter of assigning dates to documents)
I just realized that today is Lady Day – that is, Annunciation. Once upon a time, this was New Year’s Day. It probably derives from the date being originally set on the Spring equinox, which makes a pretty sensible first day of the year if your concept of the world derives from observations of the sun. […]