
Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England - benbreen
http://tudoraccidents.history.ox.ac.uk/?page_id=177
======
girzel
It's kind of thrilling to see the narrative historical detail still available
to us at a 500-year remove. There's so much we don't know about Europe in
these ages, but we do know that at 3pm on March 11, 1550, the laborer John
Rusey tripped over a cart-rut in the road and landed on his own knife,
stabbing himself to a depth of 2 inches and dying there. It's almost like you
were there...

~~~
roel_v
There are many archives across Europe with boxes upon boxes of old documents,
100's of years old, that nobody simply has had time to look at. If it weren't
for a 'History of the Law in the Southern Netherlands' course I took as part
of my law degree (and frankly, I took it because the schedule fit better
around my job than other courses), I would never even have known about the
archive near me. The professor took us there one day, we signed in, got given
some latex gloves and were each handed a box of documents from the medieval
archives of the city (by one of the librarians). They were all old court
cases, and the assignment was basically to look through them for a case that
looked interesting, try to read it, and write a report on the judicial
organization and procedural rules in it.

Anyway, to get to your point: yes it's awesome reading these old accounts of
seemingly mundane things, so many years ago, sometimes references places or
houses that still exist. I don't think I could ever be a historian and do it
for years on end, but just sniffing around a bit (and in a repurposed medieval
church, with the complete surroundings just breathing that 'The name of the
Rose' feeling, in my case) is, in a way, intellectually exhilarating (who
would have thought anyone would ever describe reading 500 year old court cases
'exhilarating'...).

~~~
cr1895
> They were all old court cases, and the assignment was basically to look
> through them for a case that looked interesting, try to read it, and write a
> report on the judicial organization and procedural rules in it.

That sounds like a really interesting course! How difficult was it to parse
the old Dutch?

~~~
roel_v
Quite difficult TBH. Not only the different spelling, but also that there were
lots of different words than we use now for the same thing, and cases where
the old word looked like a weird form of something of today but then turned
out to be very different; and then all the linguistic embellishment. Instead
of saying "x and y happened on date z" (as you would read in today's court
transcripts), it would say "and so then it happened that, upon so many days
after Easter, when the moon was full, also indicated as the year of the lord
so and so and this month, that the horrible event of which we are talking
about today too place, where first x was said by person bla", ... - on and on
and on. I wonder how they got anything done those days.

If you're into this sort of thing (and know Dutch), a really fun read is "Een
notabel boecxken van cokeryen", a Dutch cook book from around 1510. Annotated
(translated) version available at
[http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_not001nota01_01/_not001nota01_01....](http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_not001nota01_01/_not001nota01_01.pdf)
. Illustrates the issues above very well.

~~~
cr1895
Neat! I'm learning Dutch and can understand some of what's in that old
cookbook, still not easy though. Kind of surprised at all of the spices it
calls for...must have been food eaten by the wealthy. The old Dutch in that
book looks a little like Frisian, as far as I can tell.

~~~
coldpie
If you like this kind of stuff, there's a Dutch researcher who maintains a
blog about old books, many of which are in old Dutch:
[https://medievalbooks.nl/](https://medievalbooks.nl/) Sadly not updated in
over a year, but there are a lot of gems in the archives.

------
hodgesrm
There's a great story in the Jamestown Museum about how John Smith almost died
from stepping on a stingray.

>> When exploring and mapping the Chesapeake bay Smith waded in the shallow
water. Smith was stung by a sting ray.

The barb in the ray’s lashing tail pierced his arm. Smith got so very sick,
thinking he would not survive this …his men dug him a grave. But a doctor
applied heat to the wound and by this Smith was saved. Feeling better that
evening, he ate the stingray for supper that night.

When he drew up his map,… he marked the spot on his map where he almost met
death “Stingray Point”

([http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/captain-john-
smiths-...](http://www.williamsburgprivatetours.com/captain-john-smiths-
escapes-death-again/), there's a similar account inside the museum)

~~~
de_Selby
> he ate the stingray for supper that night

What a baller! Fantastic story, little touches like this make it so
believable.

~~~
hodgesrm
Yep, it's a great punchline. :)

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jasperry
This site made me realize what a powerful effect fonts have on our perception
of a text. I had to keep reminding myself that I was reading the words of
modern historians and not a scan of some 400-year-old document.

~~~
tallanvor
My reaction was the opposite. I want to scream at the site designer that we
have readable fonts these days.

~~~
adrianratnapala
Hmm, I agree the font was annoying, but it not unreadable. Indeed it is much
easier to read than the grey-on-grey text that you often find on modern sites.

And contra the parent comment, it doesn't look like a scan of a centuries old
document -- it just looks a scan of a book from the mid 20th century.

I've read lots of such books, and while some have better typography than
others, they are all quite easy to read. I think we have a habit of conflating
"this is ugly I wish it were different" with "I can't read this".

~~~
SippinLean
Lots of things hamper the legibility of that site. Poor font choice, pure
black text on pure white, long line length, narrow leading, small size.
Looking at the site header it appears the typography decisions were based on
decoration instead of legibility.

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olivermarks
I recently visited Duncan Mill, a steam powered saw mill, which runs a couple
of times a year in Northern California to demonstrate how redwoods were cut
into lumber in the the late 18th century.The number of ways you could die or
get maimed in an instant was pretty astounding.

Example video
[https://www.instagram.com/p/BVeIBFdBgtI/?hl=en](https://www.instagram.com/p/BVeIBFdBgtI/?hl=en)
Life was amazingly dangerous until very recently...

~~~
tyingq
Still that way in some places I've been. Construction in places like Mexico
doesn't seem to have anything like OSHA, at least anything that's having an
influence. Lots of concrete cutting with unguarded blades, loose clothing, no
eye protection, etc.

Or check out this one in China, forging huge flanges in the street with very
little safeguards.
[https://youtu.be/yE8A6uMYXmw](https://youtu.be/yE8A6uMYXmw)

~~~
empath75
Yep, spemt three months backpacking through Central America. Even as a
tourist, you sort of start accepting that life is dangerous after a while. Or
you just don't leave the hotel.

------
wpaladin
The twitter account Medieval Death Bot provides a morbidly entertaining
stream. [https://twitter.com/DeathMedieval](https://twitter.com/DeathMedieval)

------
failrate
Wow, maybe don't put an open tankard of beer right next to an open tankard of
lice poison. Next to your bed. In the dark.

~~~
danieltillett
Yes this was before they brought in poison bottles [1]. We take for granted
the ability to turn on the light when trying to find the right bottle in the
dark.

1\. [http://www.collectorsweekly.com/bottles/poison-
bottles](http://www.collectorsweekly.com/bottles/poison-bottles)

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amatecha
Well, this certainly puts things into perspective. It's pretty amazing how
many people died just from lack of knowledge of either the nature of, or
remedy to, their illness.

------
evincarofautumn
I find these oddly comforting. Yes, fate can still strike at any time, but
many of these injuries are now so much more preventable and treatable.

Especially fascinating are the cases where modern life is significantly more
or less dangerous. You might be more likely to be killed by a house fire or
stairwell fall now, but less by animals (simply due to reduced contact) or
drowning (because so many more people can swim, or even perform CPR).

~~~
mseebach
I don't think you're anywhere near more likely to be killed in a house fire
today. Fires are much less common, owing to much fewer naked flames (for heat
and light) and much less fuel lying around to sustain them. And even when the
fire does happen, modern houses are much less flammable (less wood is used,
and the wood that is used is often treated, carpets, drapes, furniture etc is
made from flame retardant materials) so fires spread more slowly. Also, smoke
alarms will help you discover the fire in time and get out, which you can
generally do, because modern building codes ensure multiple exits.

I'm pretty sure something similar is true for stairwell falls and drownings
would probably be tempered by the prevalence of lifeguards in popular swimming
spots, and signage warning of particular dangerous areas.

~~~
deepsun
I heard that in ancient Moscow, house fires were so frequent, that there were
markets of pre-half-built houses for sale outside the town. They weren't that
expensive (wood was cheap), wo that if your house was burnt it was not really
that big of a deal (still big, but not the end of the life).

The biggest threat was massive blaze. If some house caught a fire, no one
would be putting it out, instead, everyone would be breaking other nearby
houses, to contain the fire.

