Below you will find links to some interesting history-related articles I’ve read recently, a photo from a recent historic trip, and an item about the history/practice of writing (sort of).
Enjoy!
History writing
- Fascinating story about evidence suggesting Sacagawea survived into old age, and the struggle to get it recognised because it comes from oral rather than written history.
- A rare record – four diaries documenting 40 years of the life of 17th Century Yorkshirewoman, Alice Thornton.
- A sorceress’ tool kit containing 100 small objects used for fortune telling and rituals has been found in Pompeii.
- A review of two books reveals lots of fascinating details about the history and use of libraries (one of my favourite places!).
- I’ve long had it on my own list of story ideas to write about the use of fig leaves on sculptures, but LoLo’s already done it, so I’ll just point you to their piece instead.
History
When the industry around mechanical printing developed in England in the late 15th into the 16th centuries, York was one of the very few places outside London given royal permission for a printing press. As in the capital, where the print industry grew up in the streets around St Paul’s Cathedral, in York it developed on Stonegate, a street which leads to/from York Minster. Today, at number 33 Stonegate, at the upper right of the shopfront, a carved red devil perches on a scrolled bracket.
The devil is a symbol of York’s – and Stonegate’s – place in the history of printing in England. Specifically, it references the nickname given to the youngest printer’s assistant or apprentice, whose menial work often left them dirtied with smudges of ink. The Oxford English Dictionary gives 1716 as the earliest use of the term ‘printer’s devil’, although a reference to the singular ‘devil’, but used in the same context, exists from 1683.
‘The King’s printer’ Stephen Bulkley, and Thomas and Alice Broad, were known to operate printing presses from Stonegate in the mid-17th Century. Thomas Gent – a printer, newspaper publisher, and history book writer – also operated from Stonegate and/or Coffee Yard, during the first half of the 18th Century. The building at number 33 Stonegate sits on the corner of Coffee Yard. The devil was installed to commemorate York’s printing history in the 1880s.
A couple more pics from my trip to York:
Views from my climb up York Minster tower: the roof buttresses, as seen from half-way up the climb (left); and a view of the streets from the top of the tower – Stonegate curves off from the right of the roof peak (right).
Writing
More design than writing (albeit the design of the forms in which writing is rendered), but I found this article about the origin and evolution of the ‘letterforms’ used on Black Sabbath’s first four albums quite interesting. It also feels like an appropriate tribute to share in this newsletter following the death of frontman Ozzy Osbourne in July.
