Rare Medieval Name Tags
The past several weeks, I have been haunted by the idea of Legacy. I stumbled across this today and read it as I waited for the school bus to collect my own children.
Five hundred years later, these children are remembered; their names still fresh on my lips, this brings me some peace.
Pax.
Originally posted on :
A word of warning: this post may��make you want to weep. Last week I blogged about��tiny pieces��of parchment, paper��birch bark, and��wood that were filled with short messages from��individuals in��Antiquity and the Middle Ages (check out Texting in Medieval Times). The snippets����� from a soldier���s request for more beer��to a duke���s shopping list �����were made cheaply and with little care because the messages on them��were not meant to be kept long. Although such��ephemeral material doesn���t normally��survive, it forms an��important��historical source: it��provides a rare��glimpse on��everyday life in��medieval��times.
Fig. 1 ��� Erfgoed Leiden, HGW, Archiefnummer 519, Inv. nr. 3384 (15th century) ��� Photo EK
More than in any other medieval document I have seen, such an intimate view��of medieval��life��is provided by a type of written object��I encountered for the first time this week (Fig. 1). When visiting the restoration lab at the regional archives in Leiden (Erfgoed Leiden en omstreken)���
