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Again, #earlymodern Europe was a paper age. Let's have a closer look into this allegorical painting of 1629, and discuss what can be seen. A thread for #paperhistory #bookhistory #communicationhistory
1/x https://twitter.com/KLaveant/status/1271383086136246278
1/x https://twitter.com/KLaveant/status/1271383086136246278
A manuscript paper book used for accounting or writing purposes. These details are not new to (book) historians and are often highlighted. Yes, only a few could write, but many came into contact with paper. Here, they inform the writer what to write - on paper.
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Broadsheets were often glued or pinned to walls. Here, this paper broadsheet is positioned under a small bookshelf. Bonus for experts of early modern #bookhistory: #backwardsbooks
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Document bags were literally filled with paper. These bags could be seen hanging in administration buildings. You may enjoy @EricKetelaar's chapter 9 on this paper business:
https://archivisticshome.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/archiving-people_eric-ketelaar_2020_webversion.pdf
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https://archivisticshome.files.wordpress.com/2020/01/archiving-people_eric-ketelaar_2020_webversion.pdf
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A closer look onto this book shelf shows - on the right corner - blank "fresh" paper, the unused material before writing and printing started. There are also used papers (letters etc.), a quill, a few more bound books. A #mediahistory of using and forming paper on one shelf.
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Every administrative activity produced streams of used papers in different variations and media forms, and all these papers needed archiving systems and order. Letters, drafts, documents, etc. - storing was a paper business in early modern Europe.
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The birth of archives is connected to the birth of records, and all this was a paper world of material consumption. Draft became useless, letters outdated, papers turned vastly and steadily into used papers. A waste world. Waiting to be picked up for recycling. #paperhistory
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Early modern Europe's paper consumption was messier than the history of books and the history of administration addresses. It was a paper business of dealing with vast amounts of used papers in need for storage, re-usage or recycling, and fresh paper "waiting" to be used.
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While consumption and usage of paper is one story, such paintings remind us also to ask: where came all that paper from, who traded it, under which conditions. In short, the paper trade needs more attention. If you are interested, join our network: https://earlymodernpapertrade.home.blog/the-network/
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As paper seems to have been everywhere in early modern Europe - for example in archiving, administrating, communicating, and wrapping activities - it is time for a history of paper as one of the main material characteristic of the period. #paperhistory
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And such a newly accentuated #paperhistory is developing. For example, I recently published a book that uses the case study #Amsterdam but is designed as a general approach to “how to write a history of the paper trade” of early modern Europe:
https://twitter.com/dbellingradt/status/1243097408151658496
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https://twitter.com/dbellingradt/status/1243097408151658496
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And with this upcoming volume, #paperhistory makes a real first step forward:
"The Paper Trade in Early Modern Europe: Practices, Materials, Networks", ed. by me and @torcheculs, published in early 2021 @BrillPublishing
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"The Paper Trade in Early Modern Europe: Practices, Materials, Networks", ed. by me and @torcheculs, published in early 2021 @BrillPublishing
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