The Miscellany
I use this blog to write my thoughts and ideas about heritage, history and archaeology. I’ve spent a long time working in this broad landscape, from excavating Roman archaeological sites, through to exhibiting old books from the Library of London History. I’ve had access to behind the scenes in historic houses, had an office in an underground bunker and delved into archive boxes that hadn’t been opened for many, many years. My posts are a varied mix of differnt periods, archives, objects and buildings – a miscellany.
The Historier
Who is the Historier? He/she dates back at least to around 1449, when mentioned as “Sithen historiers dwelling in thilk same cuntre..kouthen knowe better the treuthe of the deede than othere men.” In 1490, Caxton in his Boke yf Eneydos wrote “Wrytynges and dyctes of olde and auncyente cronycles or historyers.” In the next century, Skelton described him as that “noble historiar” and in 1581, Marbeck recorded of him, “Which al writers, Poets, historiers, cosmographers..do confesse.”
As the Historier is almost 600 years old, he/she doesn’t look at history as boxes, periods and eras. These false boundaries were created by his descendants, the Antiquarians. Archaeology and archives are one and the same. A landscape holds the same meanings and read in the same way as a museum object. Most often, the meaning is found withn us, not the item.
The Historier is also found in Nordic writings. In Danish, Historier means “story”.
An Historier's Miscellany 