History Links: Medieval Manuscripts, Wills, and Victorians
This edition of History Links is rather long, because I just kept finding links I had stashed somewhere. GO FORTH AND PROCRASTINATE.
A COURSERA COURSE ON MAGNA CARTA OMG!!!!!!!!!!
Mental Floss and John Green offer a delightful summary of weird wills through history. It’s perfect. Similarly (though not strictly historical), while writing an estate planning presentation this week I found a blog post on mean things people write in their wills, and it’s quite entertaining (though not recommended!). Example: to “my brother-in-law, who always insisted that health is better than wealth, I leave my treadmill.” HA.
The History Vault talks about non-royal duchesses, who are quite a bit more rare in life than in, say, Regency-set romance novels, where sometimes it seems they’re hanging out on every street corner (with their former-prostitute maid, of course).
Via my friend Kate, Richard III’s reinterment route has been announced. His remains will leave the University of Leicester and pass through several sites of historic interest before arriving at Leicester Cathedral. I do love a royal procession and this one sounds fascinating. There will also be services and a new tomb.
Also via Kate: an interesting article on Lord Elgin. I can never make up my mind on the marbles, other than to say that I have loved them every time I’ve seen them. (Currently resting in the British Museum, along with tons of other plundered treasures.)
Qatar has launched a digital library and it looks amazing. In just a quick browse, I found stuff about early aviation and the development of math, and there are all sorts of maps and manuscripts.
I’ve recently started following Bizarre Victoria on Twitter and she’s tons of fun. Her blog features all sorts of fun and weird historical tidbits, and I’ve been reading some of her posts on 19th-century women who, essentially, did whatever the $*%! they wanted, and it’s both fascinating and kind of inspiring. Even if they weren’t doing GOOD things, necessarily, they were certainly grabbing life by the balls, you know? (I’ve read about Mary Kingsley, Isabella Bird, and Si Mahoud so far, and holy shit, they’re amazing.)
History Extra is publishing excerpts from Giles Milton’s Fascinating Footnotes collection of e-books (which don’t appear to be available stateside- the stories will be published in paperback in 2016). I just read the excerpt on Agatha Christie’s famous 11-day disappearance in 1926; there’s also an excerpt about Hitler’s cocaine addiction. (Milton’s blog has a lot of similar stuff, too.)
Twitter time!
SEE? SO MUCH FUN:
This kid’s got his priorities straight:
Gross, but fitting enough for the week before Halloween:
Hello, medieval manuscripts, you sexy beasts:
https://twitter.com/robmmiller/status/522746959556509696
And finally, whoa:
Reign of Terrible 