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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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| Collections of antique, precious, unusual and exotic objects and books were called “Antiquarium†in German from the Renaissance onward |
They do not mean the Renaissance, they mean the Reformation. In Catholic countries all these things were the preserve of the Church, they were preserved by the Church, they were available for inspection in church. At a stroke all this was swept away by Protestantism, often literally. But the need for it remained. It is after all part of the human condition. In Germany, in Holland, in England and in Sweden the need was, as we would put it today, monetised. Privatised. Laicised.
Except that Protestants discovered what the Church had known for centuries: there just aren’t any antique, precious, unusual and exotic objects and books out there! There really aren’t. That’s another part of the human condition – people either lose stuff or they cling on to it for dear life. If you want to collect stuff you have to do what the Church always did -- make it yourself or get it from someone who’ll make it for you ...
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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My thinking is that the book was a recent invention. Much more recent than we think. And history was even *more* recently invented.
All the old books and old histories are fabrications. Why people fabricated these things I leave to the psychologists and sociologists.
I don't understand the past at all. Where human beings came from I think now an impenetrable mystery. The most I can hope to do is gather the evidence to convince others that they do not know what they believe they know.
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Except that Protestants discovered what the Church had known for centuries: there just aren’t any antique, precious, unusual and exotic objects and books out there! |
Yes. This is a conclusion to which I also have come.
If you read the old histories, they are full of stories about libraries burning down or books even being purposefully destroyed (the source books for Islamic writing, for instance, are supposed to have been destroyed).
I've come to the conclusion that none of this happened. There were no libraries to burn down because there were no books. So why the stories about lost books?
It was to give authority to the new books that were made. These would gain legitimacy if they had ancient precedents. Having given these books such precedents, the authors needed to explain why those precedents no longer existed. The answer: The books were destroyed.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As usual, Ishmael, you are keen to make these vast prognostications without doing the hard graft.
| My thinking is that the book was a recent invention. Much more recent than we think. And history was even *more* recently invented. |
You are correct in the sense that 'books' were pretty much coeval with printing. Any earlier ones are almost by definition forgeries. History though does not rely on books. In fact history by definition does not rely on books -- they are secondary and tertiary evidence and may be used only as adjuncts to primary evidence, contemporaneous records. Whether historians abide by this rule is another matter.
| All the old books and old histories are fabrications. Why people fabricated these things I leave to the psychologists and sociologists |
You'll have a long wait. This is our task.
| I don't understand the past at all. Where human beings came from I think now an impenetrable mystery. The most I can hope to do is gather the evidence to convince others that they do not know what they believe they know. |
Glad to hear it. We look forward to the results of your endeavours.
| If you read the old histories, they are full of stories about libraries burning down or books even being purposefully destroyed (the source books for Islamic writing, for instance, are supposed to have been destroyed). |
On the other hand, it is an observable fact that libraries do burn down and that they are purposefully destroyed.
| I've come to the conclusion that none of this happened. There were no libraries to burn down because there were no books. |
An extravagant assumption.
| So why the stories about lost books? |
Ah, you've arrived at the heart of the mystery. I knew you would.
| It was to give authority to the new books that were made. These would gain legitimacy if they had ancient precedents. Having given these books such precedents, the authors needed to explain why those precedents no longer existed. The answer: The books were destroyed. |
The ones that did exist or the ones that didn't exist?
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Back on the German ranch, we return to these mysterious antiquariums
| And this is what the founders of the publishing firm had in mind: a treasury of rare and unusual books, manuscripts, of exotic and exceptional works of knowledge. |
So, apparently, these German book companies had a business plan that consisted of printing, publishing and selling ordinary books in the ordinary way, but with a sideline in the antiques trade (rare book division). Now not only are these hard to get hold of in general ('rare and unusual') but non-existent ('exotic and exceptional works of knowledge'). I know this is the nineteenth century but surely even they must have twigged that this is an impossible combination. Books may be exotic but if they are exceptional works of knowledge as well, they will be republished by the thousand in a modern format thereby ceasing to be exotic.
Not that any such books have ever been found, they have all turned out to be mumbo-jumbo. Egyptian Book of the Dead, anyone? So why have the Germans beaten everyone to the best loungers round the antiquarian pool? They twigged that if you publish the catalogues you control the pool. Here's someone with a particularly large beach towel
| He had begun as an apprentice in the distribution department and was entrusted with the new branch upon its foundation. He proved to be the very man for the job. Under his all too short leadership, the Antiquarium flourished. He published several catalogues, some of which are still works of reference, like the catalogue “Bibliotheque Américaineâ€, a list of 435 books of a library he had acquired in Amsterdam. |
"Yes, squire, 'course they're genuine, they're in the bleedin' catalogue, ain't they?"
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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An interesting concept arose on Baggage Wars today, related to Grangerisation. It's a James Dean deathmask worth $2,500. "He saw a Marlon Brando sculpted-from-life mask in an artist's shop window and rushed in to ask if he could have one made of himself." That'd be worth a bob or two. But no, he died and the artist "had to make it from photos". Actually there's no evidence that this deathmask is that deathmask but since anyone can do it anyway, what is the rarity? Not even 'in his lifetime'. A good likeness of a famous figure ... coupla hundred.
But with the antique engravures we have been dealing with, when nobody knows what the originals looked like, that's kinda difficult. Actually, the more distinguished the geezer looks, the better. Who would buy a future engravure of the actual Stephen Hawking (or Rory Stewart)? Talk about a minefield.
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Hatty
Site Admin
In: Berkshire
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A runestone has turned up inside a small church on the island of Gotland, a professor of history from Malmo University tweeted
| A recently rediscovered #runic inscription from Hejde church in Gotland. It commemorates when the church burned in 1492 during a ritual procession! |
One comment expressed surprise at such a late date to which the professor replied that runes were still used in the 17th century. But this runestone may turn out to be far more recent since it was only discovered the other day.
There doesn't appear to be a date so unless an actual record exists of Hedje church being burnt, it may be that '1492' was selected later. Much later.
The church was renovated in the 1930s and again in 1976 and the mid-1980s. According to the professor from Malmo, the runestone went missing in 1854.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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History's Greatest Hoaxes is being re-run on the BBC Yesterday Channel, beginning with the Alien Autopsy of bodies allegedly found at Roswell. The point was, not the brilliance (or otherwise) of the hoax, but the fact that you knew it was coming. The universal cry of "Oh, yeah?" could be heard from all sides. The one thing we have learned here about historical fakes is that no-one knows they're coming. They are always things that everyone thought were already there and just needed finding. After that nobody ever takes a second look.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Talking of which, it's the Hitler Diaries tonight. A familiar enough story but it will be the first time most of us here will be viewing it as an exemplar rather than an episode. Viewing it with what our Marxian friends call 'a raised consciousness'.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Look out for the phrase, "To be fair, it was believable." If you are dealing with an is it/isn't it a forgery? situation, this should be a red flag. Forgers do not present propositions that are not believable. Actually they present situations that are 'all too believable'. That's the kind of situation that gets people sprinkling phrases like 'to be fair' around. When it's authentic -- but sufficiently unusual to be in an is-it/isn't it? situation in the first place -- it all tends to be a bit unbelievable. Because that's what made it unusual in the first place.
To be fair, he oughn't to have been struck by lightning.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Ishmael
In: Toronto
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| Mick Harper wrote: | | Talking of which, it's the Hitler Diaries tonight. A familiar enough story but it will be the first time most of us here will be viewing it as an exemplar rather than an episode. Viewing it with what our Marxian friends call 'a raised consciousness'. |
I'm reading Tudor history (again) right now (different author than last time).
As you may recall, some years ago I referred to the "love letters" of Anne Boleyn and Henry 8 as an obvious forgery. The unlikelihood of the survival of such letters is exceeded only by the desirability that such letters would survive. What I've now discovered is that those letters are not unique. Dozens of famous personages from this period were kind enough to leave us their letters. I know this because the historian I am now reading is constantly quoting those letters.
But there are two things that strike me about the lines he quotes from these letters. One; that in none of his prior books did he quote so many letters. So I presume this period produced an extraordinary amount of surviving first-hand testimony. That's a red flag there.
But another point I thought even more noteworthy.
None of the first-hand witnesses ever actually say anything!
All the quotes are characters expressing emotions or advice regarding emotions. The quotes never reveal anything of significance concerning the events of the time---and never contradict the testimony of supposed contemporary historians. It seems to me that there is nothing to learn from reading any of these letters. Like infant gospels, they just fill in the empty parts of history and fill it in with mostly air.
In short; these letters are exactly the sort of thing someone might write who was familiar with the received history and wished to flesh out the characters in a manner fully consistent with that history.
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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As you know, Hatty is our resident Twitter attack dog. By this I mean she hangs about on the margins waiting for her prey to hove into view. Normally an academic posting up something gushing about an obvious fake. The original post is always followed in quick order by more gushing comments from both academic colleagues and lay followers that either congratulates the Twittering academic’s capacious knowledge or provides further paeans of delight about whatever it is – a manuscript, a bauble, a stone inscription, an Anglo-Saxon church. The discussion may not be very informative but it is always a regular love-in. Until the jackal pounces...
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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Hatty’s interventions are always the same. A request for some evidence, either in the form of contemporaneous documentation or a scientific test. They are, it is true, couched in wickedly mild terms and of course what none of the assembled savants and gallants know is that Hatty has already established that there is no evidence, only variants of “Well, it looks like...†The responses are, in order of frequency
1. Nothing. Most of the time she is carefully ignored. It is as if such a thing ought not to be done in polite society.
2. Hatty is told to consult such and such authority
3. Very occasionally – it happened most recently with the head honcho of the Megalithic Portal – she is told it is sufficiently self-evident as not to need evidence.
As you might imagine this doesn’t get rid of Hatty so sterner methods are then resorted to....
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Mick Harper
Site Admin
In: London
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She has been banned by the following academics specialising in the Early Medieval period
Sue Brunning
Elaine Trehearne
Kate Wiles
Amy Brown
Caitlin Green
James Wright
Eleanor Parker
Guy Halsall
They can't all be wrong!
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