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#medieval life
memories-of-ancients · 8 months
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Wooden Money in Olde England,
The use of tally sticks as an accounting tool goes back to ancient antiquity and the dawn of civilization. In an age when the vast majority of people were illiterate, the simplest way represent a certain number of goods was to simply cut markings into a stick, a piece of bamboo, bone, or other similar item. Such systems were common all over the world including Europe, Asia, Africa, and the Pre-Columbian Americas. If you have, say 12 goats, you could go to the market, find an interested buyer, hold up the stick with 12 notches cut into it and say, “I have this many goats, want to make a deal?”
 By the Middle Ages in Europe, Asia, and The Middle East, tally sticks were used as a record of debts, almost like a wooden credit card. An agreement to an IOU was made with the amount notched out on both sides of a stick. The stick was then split in half lengthwise, with one half held by the creditor, and the other half held by the debtor. Believe it or not this system of recording and settling debts continued well into modern times. In 1804 the use of the split tally was acknowledge as legal proof of debt in the Napoleonic Code. The split tally continued in use in Switzerland into the 20th century. When the Bank of England was founded in 1694 as a public corporation, the bank issued tally sticks to it’s investors as proof of their investments. Since the investments were recorded on stocks of wood, they became known as “stocks” and since then the use of the term “stock” for a investment in ownership of a public company has continued to this very day.
In 1100 King Henry I of England began issuing tally sticks as a form of money due to a lack of coinage in the kingdom and Europe in general at the time. The denomination of the stick would be etched onto both sides of the stick. The Dialogue Concerning the Exchequer, written in the 13th century, notes the different denominations as thus,
“The manner of cutting is as follows. At the top of the tally a cut is made, the thickness of the palm of the hand, to represent a thousand pounds; then a hundred pounds by a cut the breadth of a thumb; twenty pounds, the breadth of the little finger; a single pound, the width of a swollen barleycorn; a shilling rather narrower; then a penny is marked by a single cut without removing any wood.”
Like other split tallies, the stick was split lengthwise, with one half being circulated among the populace as money, and the other half being stored at the local exchequer’s office (treasurer).  If one believed they were being cheated with a counterfeit stick, one only had to make a visit to the local exchequer and match his half of the stick with the half held by the treasurer. 
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The use of the split tally for money and the recording of debts ended by act of the British Parliament in 1826.  In 1834 Parliament ordered the burning of thousands of ancient tally sticks representing centuries worth of wooden money and debt records to be burned. During their destruction, the chimney of the stove caught fire, resulting in a blaze that destroyed most of the Palace of Westminster.
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lady-0f-the-wood · 4 months
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ebookporn · 5 months
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A collection of interactive maps that use 700-year-old records of coroners’ inquests to locate and detail homicides across three UK cities.
A great resource for Writers
Read more from The Guardian:
The team behind the project say they hope the approach will offer a window into the past. “It brings [the records] to life because you can actually locate them in places that you know about,” said Prof Manuel Eisner, the lead murder map investigator and director of Cambridge’s Institute of Criminology.
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capricorn-0mnikorn · 3 months
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"Giddy-up, Jingle Horse, pick up your feet..."
A video from about 3 years ago, about "jingle bells," and how they were made, and used, in the medieval period, with some speculation about their benefits. Eye contact. Auto-Generated captions (The technical name for these bells, that the algorithm is guessing at, is "Crotal" bells). Under 15 minutes.
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briarcrawford · 2 months
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"I learned Alchemy from Medieval Manuscripts. Here's how it works" 🏰🧪
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An introductory Video to Alchemy! In this video we take a look at the four elements alchemists relied on, and the process of "calcination" 
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mexicanistnet · 2 months
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Medieval life was a mosh pit of famines, plagues, and dragons. To survive, you joined the human centipede: guilds, families, anything but the dreaded “wanderer.” Women? They were wives, mothers, daughters — neatly filed in the Dewey Decimal System of societal roles.
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flittermouseart · 6 months
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Comfort Characters
If you stick around Sketchbook Saturdays long enough, you’ll start to recognize this character. He was one of my very first OCs (original characters), and he likes to wander onto my practice pages. I’ve drawn him so often that he’s fallen into the category of “comfort character.” 
I strongly believe in practicing my drawing skills every single day … but sometimes I want to create without the pressure of being creative, y’know?
Comfort characters are my go-to when I’m not feeling particularly artsy. They’re the characters that I’ve sketched over and over and over. Some of them, like this one, I’ve drawn so much that I only need one active braincell on duty in order to whip out a decent drawing. He seems to jump out of my pencil and onto the page, which is great for days when I’m not up for an artsy challenge.
I think Flann! (from my graphic novels) will eventually fall into the “comfort character” category. I’ve drawn her so many times in so many different poses that I don’t really have to THINK anymore when I draw her. Flann!’s on Active Duty right now — I’m sketching her every day while I map out Volume 3! — so I’ve temporarily banned her from my sketchbook, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see Flynn, Flann!, and James all sneak into my practice pages once we’ve completed their current adventure.
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stone-cold-groove · 1 month
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The Big Fish Eat the Little Fish - 1557.
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medieval-castle · 2 years
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© Barry'sPhotography 
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darkponymod · 1 year
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Tableau Vivant, at Buenos Aires, last weekend.
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beaubambabey · 9 months
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Oh, to live the life of a medieval peasant (simple labor with proper breaks in between, less than half the year doing actual work, time for recreation and crafts and loved ones) minus the plagues (past, current, and breakouts that could be easily avoided by vaccinating)
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victusinveritas · 1 year
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A detail from an illuminated manuscript depicting a medieval monk seducing a nun, who becomes pregnant and has an illegitimate baby. She then disposes of the baby in the privy (toilet). From the Miracles de Notre Dame, 71 A 24, now housed at the Royal Library of the Netherlands
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I hope any readers enjoyed my recent essay. It was my first in months, although I already have another one in the works that continues on the themes of the first. My upcoming essays are likely to draw more on the Middle Ages again after the several that I wrote concerning classical antiquity. In the meantime, I will be sharing articles like I used to. This one from the BBC is about medieval sword-fighting. Beginning with a story of a knight who was forced to become a monk after almost dying in a trial by duel, the article tells us how knights were the medieval equivalent of celebrities in everything from literature to politics. They thus would spend as long as a decade training to use many medieval weapons, especially the sword. Knights learned their techniques from professional fight masters and paper manuals accompanied with instructions and illustrations. Modern historians and martial artists know surprisingly little about how knights really used their swords, so these manuals are of great interest. Read the article for additional details.
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0hheytherebigbadwolf · 2 months
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Arthur: *taking a bath*
Merlin: *walks in and climbs into the tub*
Arthur, unfazed: You know, you're getting weirder.
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