Great post! Humans haven't changed as much as we think. The same percentage of people died in medieval times as die today: 100%. Death has always been the enemy, and our hearts have always longed for life and love. I can't imagine that medieval and ancient people loved less -- only that they suffered more from earlier losses. Time-travel with me to 1348 London where I research the Black Death! https://katesusong.substack.com/p/a-time-travelogue-to-medieval-london-d5b
I repair Medieval and Tudor timber buildings and I roll my eyes every week when clients express surprise at fashion and progress being visible within the carpentry.
Of course our forbears loved, loathed, hoped and hated, just as much as they wanted to keep up with (or ahead of!) their neighbours and peers.
Definitely eager for further exploration within this topic, thanks
Right?! It always makes me sad when I hear the view that we love more / are more artistic/ etc. than historic people. I say often that they loved and lost, had the same heartbreaks and passions as us, even if their context was completely different. Your work sounds super interesting by the way; how did you get into that?
Almost by accident, at least initially. I hated being in construction and wanted to study medieval art history but it fell through (not enough signed up for the course). I returned to site carpentry and thankfully got to work on some early buildings. It dawned on me that these were also 'medieval art history' so I studied by reading lots, going to talks and looking really closely at what I was working on. That was 35 years ago and although I'm physically broken by it, I'm still at it!
I love that story! Sometimes it’s about bringing at least part of our passion into what we’re already doing (if we’re not able to leave our jobs). And it sounds like you’re very hands-on with the history so many of us just get to read in books/site reports.
It was in my mind a couple hours later when I was teaching about what accuracy means when pop culture works with material from the ancient world, and how we balance accuracy and authenticity. So thank you!
Thank you! Your article and final comments made me think of this medieval thinker:
"In the Book of the Friend and Lover Llull writes:
198. The friend loved so much the lover that he believed everything he said, and he desired to understand him so much that everything he heard him say, he wanted to understand through necessary reasons. That is why the friend’s love was between belief and intelligence."
[Llull, Ramón, Llibre d’Amic e Amat (Book of the Friend and Lover), My translation of Llull’s original Catalan.]
It also made me think about how often, when looking at portraits in art galleries or online, especially those that are distant from us in time past, I often get the feeling that, without their make up, their clothes, their time-constrained hairstyles, each of them could possibly be my next door neighbour, my relative or the first person I see when jumping on a bus or going for a walk in town. We are alike to our ancestors I reflect, inside and out, much of a muchness.
I resonate so much with your experience of looking at historical paintings: I often feel like that too! I try to imagine them in modern clothes and their faces look so familiar.
I think that any statement of the form 'people of time period X did not have intellectual concept Y' is subject to a high burden of proof.
I can't think of any statement of the type that I think is likely to be true and I can probably think of a half dozen that are likely to be false.
I wouldn't go too far in the opposite direction and stress how attitudes to love, children, and death are a human universal, but we have significant letters, diaries, and novels surviving since the 18th century and they are not evidence for a grand evolution in the meaning of love.
Yes! It is true that the world pre-1900ish (pre-advent of communications technology) was wildly different to our own and that will have shaped our ancestors' social and emotional lives significantly. But it does seem from those personal documents we have surviving that love has not changed so much, as you say. There are a number of written sources from pre-Conquest England (poetry and riddles) that convince me that they loved with the same intensity we do!
Marvellous story... Wow! Thank you for this loving story of the times, unusual-to-our-ears names and all. Very inspiring - going down another rabbit hole or two!! :)
Great post! Humans haven't changed as much as we think. The same percentage of people died in medieval times as die today: 100%. Death has always been the enemy, and our hearts have always longed for life and love. I can't imagine that medieval and ancient people loved less -- only that they suffered more from earlier losses. Time-travel with me to 1348 London where I research the Black Death! https://katesusong.substack.com/p/a-time-travelogue-to-medieval-london-d5b
I repair Medieval and Tudor timber buildings and I roll my eyes every week when clients express surprise at fashion and progress being visible within the carpentry.
Of course our forbears loved, loathed, hoped and hated, just as much as they wanted to keep up with (or ahead of!) their neighbours and peers.
Definitely eager for further exploration within this topic, thanks
Right?! It always makes me sad when I hear the view that we love more / are more artistic/ etc. than historic people. I say often that they loved and lost, had the same heartbreaks and passions as us, even if their context was completely different. Your work sounds super interesting by the way; how did you get into that?
Almost by accident, at least initially. I hated being in construction and wanted to study medieval art history but it fell through (not enough signed up for the course). I returned to site carpentry and thankfully got to work on some early buildings. It dawned on me that these were also 'medieval art history' so I studied by reading lots, going to talks and looking really closely at what I was working on. That was 35 years ago and although I'm physically broken by it, I'm still at it!
Thanks for asking Holly :)
I love that story! Sometimes it’s about bringing at least part of our passion into what we’re already doing (if we’re not able to leave our jobs). And it sounds like you’re very hands-on with the history so many of us just get to read in books/site reports.
I can't imagine doing anything else :)
This is lovely - I am so enthusiastic about creating plausibly authentic scenarios that bring life to limited evidence.
I’m so pleased you enjoyed it! 🥰
It was in my mind a couple hours later when I was teaching about what accuracy means when pop culture works with material from the ancient world, and how we balance accuracy and authenticity. So thank you!
You have no idea how wonderful that is to hear! I’ve just seen your profile - do you specialise in a particular area of Classics?
Gender and sexuality in Ancient Roman literature - in particular masculinity in the 1st century BCE.
That sounds absolutely fascinating! Very similar to my research but I’m based in 6th/7th century.
Thank you! Your article and final comments made me think of this medieval thinker:
"In the Book of the Friend and Lover Llull writes:
198. The friend loved so much the lover that he believed everything he said, and he desired to understand him so much that everything he heard him say, he wanted to understand through necessary reasons. That is why the friend’s love was between belief and intelligence."
[Llull, Ramón, Llibre d’Amic e Amat (Book of the Friend and Lover), My translation of Llull’s original Catalan.]
It also made me think about how often, when looking at portraits in art galleries or online, especially those that are distant from us in time past, I often get the feeling that, without their make up, their clothes, their time-constrained hairstyles, each of them could possibly be my next door neighbour, my relative or the first person I see when jumping on a bus or going for a walk in town. We are alike to our ancestors I reflect, inside and out, much of a muchness.
I resonate so much with your experience of looking at historical paintings: I often feel like that too! I try to imagine them in modern clothes and their faces look so familiar.
I can well imagine your version of that scenario really did happen, and just as you told it. It's lovely.
And yes, I'd love to read an article about the find.
Thanks Evelyn! I will add it to the list of 'to-dos' for Substack articles.
I think that any statement of the form 'people of time period X did not have intellectual concept Y' is subject to a high burden of proof.
I can't think of any statement of the type that I think is likely to be true and I can probably think of a half dozen that are likely to be false.
I wouldn't go too far in the opposite direction and stress how attitudes to love, children, and death are a human universal, but we have significant letters, diaries, and novels surviving since the 18th century and they are not evidence for a grand evolution in the meaning of love.
Yes! It is true that the world pre-1900ish (pre-advent of communications technology) was wildly different to our own and that will have shaped our ancestors' social and emotional lives significantly. But it does seem from those personal documents we have surviving that love has not changed so much, as you say. There are a number of written sources from pre-Conquest England (poetry and riddles) that convince me that they loved with the same intensity we do!
Marvellous story... Wow! Thank you for this loving story of the times, unusual-to-our-ears names and all. Very inspiring - going down another rabbit hole or two!! :)
I’m so pleased you enjoyed it! I thought I’d go for it with the difficult-to-pronounce names, but gave the phonetic pronunciations in the footnotes!