World History « History Rhymes

25Jan/100

The Journal of Nathaniel Bryceson

A piece of Nathaniel Bryceson's journal

The other day I stumbled upon a very interesting website put together by the City of Westminster, London. It is a digitalization of the journal of Nathaniel Bryceson, an early Victorian clerk. The journal was written in 1846 when Nathaniel was nineteen years old. The online version as posted on the website for the City of Westminster, London is updated everyday 164 years after the entries were written.

The introduction to the journal explains it all:

The diary of Nathaniel Bryceson is a rare survival. It gives a fascinating insight into the daily life of a Victorian clerk, including details of his job at the coal wharf and the diverse places he visits across London as well as numerous mentions of family ailments and his assessment of the weather. Local events, especially murders, sudden deaths of famous people and the execution of criminals, feature alongside references to major London landmarks. National politics are mentioned in the context of the Parliamentary debates on the Corn Laws and the replacement of the Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel by Lord John Russell. There is even an international dimension to the diary with references to the war between the British and the Sikhs in India.

The diary

The diary runs from 1 January to 12 December 1846, and contains entries for 260 days. It was obviously not the only venture of its kind because Nathaniel refers to his ‘log book’ of the previous year, and on 12 December he purchased one for the following year. However, the 1846 diary seems to be the sole survivor. All the pages have suffered some water damage at the edges. The book was purchased by the Westminster City Archives and was formally accessioned on 20 August 1974 (reference Accession 730).

The text of the diary is written in longhand, interspersed with Pitman’s shorthand entries embracing private matters such as his financial affairs, his observations on the proprietor, colleagues and activities at Eccleston Wharf, and most of all his relationship with Ann Fox, his only regular companion. Some of the references to his sexual behaviour with her are written in surprisingly explicit language.

You can read more about the journal, a short biography of Nathaniel Bryceson and the journal itself on the website for the City of Westminster, London.

Tagged as: England, London, Nathaniel Bryceson, Victorian Era No Comments

24Jan/100

Europe in the High Middle Ages

Europe in the High Middle Ages by William Chester Jordan

This week I have a new featured book called Europe in the High Middle Ages by William Chester Jordan. It is a very well-written book which details the Europe in the eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth and fourteenth centuries. It covers a range of topics from the Mediterranean to Scandinavia, the Crusades to monasteries, the Catholic Church to the Holy Roman Emperor, and so on.

The book is written in a manner which is easy for the casual reader to understand and follow, but academic and detailed enough to be of value to the medieval field.

Tagged as: Europe, medieval, middle ages No Comments

15Jan/100

Videos of Victorian London Street Life

Here are a couple of videos that I found interest to watch. They are videos of people walking about in the late 19th century and early 20th century.

Tagged as: London, Street Life, Victorian Era No Comments

28Dec/090

Video of King George V of Great Britain

In continuing with interesting old videos of European monarchs of the late nineteenth/early twentieth century, I have posted a video of the Duke of York (later King George V of Great Britain). This is a longer video than the last, but nevertheless interesting. The video is from 1901. I find it quite fascinated to watch these old videos knowing that they were filmed over a century ago.

Note: If you cannot view the video above, you need to download a browser which supports the latest HTML 5 standards. Firefox is a good and free choice. You can also download the video here.

Tagged as: England, Great Britain, King George V No Comments

18Dec/090

Video of Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria

This is a very short, but interesting video showing Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria in 1910 or so. It really doesn't show much other than the emperor himself and some of his subjects.

Note: If you cannot view the video above, you need to download a browser which supports the latest HTML 5 standards. Firefox is a good and free choice. You can also download the video here.

Tagged as: Austria, Emperor, Empire, Francis Joseph, Hungary No Comments

28Nov/090

The Ploughman from Bohemia

Der Ackermann aus Böhmen

One of the research papers I am currently working on for my German literature class is about the ad hominem style of argumentation in the rhetorical dialog Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, or The Ploughman from Bohemia. While I am not going to go into the style of argumentation used in the text on this blog, I do want to discuss its historic significance.

The text was written ca. 1400 by Johannes von Tepl (or sometimes also known as Johannes von Saaz) and was first published in 1460. To sum it up briefly, the work is a Streitgespräch, or rhetorical dialog, between der Ackermann and Death. Der Ackermann is grieving for his wife who Death had just recently stolen from him which leads to an argument between the two. Of course der Ackermann argues that Death murdered his wife and thus should be properly punished, while Death argues that everyone must die otherwise there would be no room for anyone anymore on this earth. This is done between insulting each other. There are necessarily many details that I am choosing to omit here that are quite entertaining, but irrelevant for this post.

What is most fascinating about the dialog is the change of emphasis from religion and God to the direct confrontation between man and Death. It isn't until the end of the text that God finally breaks in between the two and establishes his judgement. Other interpretations place der Ackermann and Death in a court-like environment of which God is the judge, der Ackermann the plaintiff and Death the defendant. Both of these views are valid, however whichever standpoint the reader comes from, he or she must admit that the text breaks new ground in the question of God and religion. Der Ackermann aus Böhmen was written about a century before Luther's reformation, so Catholic doctrine was still the norm at the time.

I've included some links to the full text in both the original High Middle German and an English translation:

Original German
English (titled here as "The Husbandman and Death")

Tagged as: Der Ackermann aus Böhmen, Johannes von Saaz, Johannes von Tepl, Literature, Ploughman from Bohemia No Comments

9Nov/090

Fall of the Wall

The Berlin Wall by the Brandenburger Tor.

Unless you've been living in a cave, you've probably noticed by now that today marks the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. It was on this day, November 9th, in 1989 that the Wall was breached and East Germans finally allowed into West Germany.

This was the result of a long, complicated process by which the Soviet Union and other communist states in Eastern Europe slowly collapsed throughout the 1980s. Originally, the East German government only wanted to reform -- like its Soviet counterparts -- by offering its citizens more freedom. Part of this freedom was the ability to move between the two Germanys. Once the Wall was breached, however, the reunification of Germany became possible and even became a part of official policy. After almost a year of negotiations, Germany officially became one country again on October 3, 1990.

Tagged as: Berlin Wall, DDR, East Germany, GDR, Unification, West Germany No Comments

27Oct/090

The First Permanent Photograph

Today I was killing time by browsing Wikipedia and ran across a very interesting photograph. It is a photograph taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826 and is considered to be the first permanent photograph ever taken. Although difficult to make out, it is a photograph of buildings taken from a window in his apartment.

One of the more interesting aspects of it in my opinion is that the photograph required an eight hour exposure during daylight which means if you look closely, you can see that the buildings are illuminated from both the east and the west sides. I also find it quite fascinating that this photograph was taken almost 200 years ago and is, in some respects, a quick and simple glance into that time period.

Here is the photo:

View from the Window at Le Gras - The first permanent photograph taken by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce in 1826.

Tagged as: First Photograph, Photography No Comments

23Oct/090

History Translations

German WWI soldier, Dieter Finzen

I've been contacted by the person running the online journal of Dieter Finzen and asked if I would be willing to do translations for the site. The idea behind the site is to post journal entries made by the German World War I solider, Dieter Finzen. Each entry is posted 93 years after it was originally written. The entries were originally written in German of course, but I will be translating them into English. The English translations will be posted at the same time as the original German versions. There will also be French translations for those of you who prefer French.

I find the journal very interesting because it provides a good insight into the life of a German soldier during the First World War. As Americans, we hear about the American, British and French sides of the war, but we rarely get an opportunity to see it from the German perspective. This website gives us a unique view of what life was like for the German solider during this war.

You can find the blog here: http://dieter-finzen.blogspot.com.

Tagged as: Diary, Germany, Journal, Translations, WWI No Comments

1Aug/092

Hoax Played On 19th Century Rare Book Collectors

Cover of the Forstas Catalog

You don't hear about a lot of hoaxes that are as successful as this one was. A friend pointed me to an article that tells about a hoax played on a large number of 19th century rare book collectors. I've posted part of it here:

Jean Nepomucene Auguste Pichauld, Comte de Fortsas, was a man with a singular passion. He collected books of which only one copy was known to exist. If he ever discovered that one of the volumes in his library had a duplicate anywhere in the world, he would immediately dispose of it. So when he died on September 1, 1839 he possessed only fifty-two books, but each of them was absolutely unique.

His heir, not sharing the old man's passion for book collecting, arranged for an auction to sell off the library, and so a catalog of this small but highly unusual collection was mailed to bibliophiles throughout Europe. The auction, the collectors were told, was to be held in the offices of Mâitre Mourlon, notary, 9 rue de l'Église, in Binche, Belgium on August 10, 1840.

When Europe's librarians and intellectuals received the catalog, they could scarcely believe their eyes. The books would have been valuable even if duplicate copies had existed, but the fact that each one was unique made them priceless. The catalog contained detailed descriptions of the books, as well as numerous comments. A typical comment read:

A manuscript note attributes this work to Pere Felix Grebard, private secretary to the noted Huet, bishop of Avranches. This Pere Grebard is likewise the author of a very rare tragedy, 'La mort de Henry le grand,' which I have had in my collection, but of which I rid myself, having learned that Mons. J. Ketele of Audenarde had another copy of it.

On August 9, the day before the auction, the collectors descended on Binche like a pack of vultures. The Belgian government even sent an official representative, believing that the collection was so valuable that it should be bought in its entirety and kept in the country.

The rest of the article, you can read here.

Tagged as: 19th Century, Books, Collectors, Hoaxes 2 Comments

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