Why did Alice Thornton's uncle die suddenly in autumn 1647? According to Thornton, it was because he gorged on melons grown at his South Yorkshire estates. Jo Edge examines why melons were considered so desirable - and yet so dangerous - in the early modern period. https://www.historyworkshop.org.uk/food/forbidden-fruit/
The historian urge to begin every article with: “In [date] something happened, that on the face of it was not remarkable, but actually it was remarkable, and I will now spend a lot of time telling you why”.
🇳🇱 "His work ranged over a wide array of topics, though he is best known to philosophers today for his contributions to the natural law theories of normativity which emerged in the later medieval and early modern periods."
Two anonymous 17th Century ballads describing the purported evil deeds of Richard III, the murder of the Princes in the Tower, and the Battle of Bosworth Field, which was fought #onthisday in 1485.
A good example of Tudor propaganda.
A song of the Life and Death of King Richard the Third (to the tune of Who list to lead a soldier's life)
and
The most cruel murther of Edward the fifth, and his brother Duke of York, in the Tower; by their Uncle Richard Duke of Gloucester (to the tune of Fortune my foe)
From Richard Johnson's ballad miscellany, The Golden Garland of Princely Delights, 1620
Yesterday was the birthday of Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de Granvelle, a surprisingly important figure in the history of #EarlyModern worship and #BookHistory. So I wrote a blogpost in his honour!
I might be working on a Saturday, but one of my books has a privilege that names Martina Plantin (Moretus), which is very exciting! More about Martina can be found in this article:
The sea in #Normandy looks different if you’ve chosen (a local bookstore accommodated) to read #Condé, #Glissant, and a book on regional entanglements in the #transatlantic slave trade and the slave economies. #slavery#history
Glissant, in his “discours antillais”, talks about “inquiète tranquillité”:
“The uneasy tranquillity of our existences, by so many obscure relays tied to the tremor of the world.”
These quaint little fishing towns are so deeply entwined in the trade - local shipping companies got rich by trading slaves, the whole hinterland was engaged in weaving cotton cloth (called „indienne“) which was in turn sold to #African#slave traders. Last photo shows the #cloth distributed all over the region in which #cotton was woven into #textiles in the #earlymodern workshop system.