In the year 1448 Robert Hungerford, Lord of Moleyns threatened the Paston family with his personal army, believing that the Paston estate in Norfolk, England belonged to him. The family head, Sir John Paston, was away on business in London, thus defense of the estate was left to his wife Margaret. In preparation for a siege, Margaret wrote the following letter to her husband,
Right worshipful husband,
I recommend me to you, and pray you to get some crossbows and wyndacs (used to cock a crossbow) to bind them with, and quarrels (arrows or bolts), for your houses here be so low that there may none man shoot out with no long bow, though we had never so much need.
I suppose ye should have such things of Sir John Fastolf if ye would send to him ; and also I would ye should get two or three short poleaxes to keep within doors, and as many jackets, and ye may.
Partrich and his fellowship are sore afraid that ye would enter again upon them and they have made great ordinance within the house, and it is told me they have made bars to bar the doors crosswise, and they have made wickets on every quarter of the house to shoot out at, both with bows and with hand-guns; and the holes that be made for hand-guns, they be scarce knee high from the plancher, and of such holes be made five, there can none man shoot out at them with no hand-bows.
I pray you that ye will vouchsafe to do buy for me one pound of almonds and one pound of sugar, and that ye will do buy some frieze (fabric) to make of your children’s gowns; ye shall have best cheap and best choice of Hays’s wife, as it is told me. And that ye will buy a yard of broad cloth of black for one hood for me of 44d. or four shillings a yard, for there is neither good cloth nor good frieze in this town. As for the children’s gowns, and 1 have them 1 will do them maken.
The Trinity have you in his keeping, and send you good speed in all your matters.
Margaret Paston.
The Paston letters can be read for free at archive.org
this is quite possibly one of my favorite pieces of art from the ancient world, and i know i say that a lot, but hear me out:
it’s a fresco of one of the most powerful scenes in all of latin literature, in which the trojan hero aeneas must escape from troy as it burns, leading his family with him
on his back he carries anchises, his aged and paralyzed father; at his side, he leads his young son ascanius. he carries troy’s past on his back as he leads troy’s future from the flames
this is important not just from a plot perspective but also because it shows aeneas’s character trait of devotion both to his fate and to his family, giving us a look at the tender side of the trojan warrior
for some reason though the artist decided to paint them as dogs
furries have been around for so long
also i’m not completely sure but i think dogneas’s doggy bone might be hanging out the front of his tunic
I had to research Corn Flakes for my American Icons class and I came across what may be the funniest fucking image I have ever seen.
Edit, because people keep bringing this up: Corn Flakes were invented by Seventh-day Adventist Dr. J. R. Kellogg, who believed masturbation was bad and bland foods suppressed sexual urges. Grape Nuts were invented by C. W. Post, a former patient of Kellogg’s. The main idea of the ad is that eating Grape Nuts will help a man channel his sexual energy into more productive activities.
One common abbreviation used in Roman letters was SPD, which was short for salutem plurimam dicit, or “sends many greetings.” This served as a greeting at the beginning of a letter, to indicate the sender and the receiver, as in “Marcus Sexto SPD” (“Marcus sends many greetings to Sextus”). Another popular acronym was SVBEEV, which was short for si vales, bene est, ego valeo (“if you are well, that is good, I am well”). Such abbreviations saved space and time, just as acronyms (BTW, AFAIK, IANAL) do today in Internet posts and text messages.
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Tom Standage,
Writing on the Wall: Social Media - The First 2,000 Years
these millenials and their writespeak. in my day we didn’t have all these letters going around. if you wanted to speak to someone you marched up to Gaul and said it to their face, as the gods intended.
Jonathan McPherson holds the double-barrel shotgun he carried to guard Martin Luther King Jr. when the civil rights leader rested in this Smithfield house.
