Thursday, September 28, 2017

How to Spend October, 1612

Tacuinum Sanitatis, Paris, BnF Lat. 9333, f. 96r
"In October... Arme your body soundly with pleasant wines or spiced drinks against the ensuing Winter. Arme your minde with study, for now this temperate time invites thee to read without impediments either of violent colde or violent heat." 
William Vaughan, Approved Directions for Health
Quick, arm yourself with the pleasant wines and long books because WINTER IS COMING

Thursday, September 7, 2017

How to Behave at School, 1479

Hortus sanitatis (1497), Darmstadt
"We order and decree that teachers and students who are wearers of indecent garments, brawlers, drunks, nighttime ramblers, pimps, thieves, frequenters of taverns and other filthy places, players of dice, scoffers or trespassers of the statutes and commands of the Rector and the University, arrogant abusers of privileges, and especially aggravators of the citizens and committers of other scandalous misdeeds, if they do not desist after fair warning... shall be entirely excluded from the community of the University.”  
Copenhagen University Statutes, 1479
Fall: when teachers and students sharpen their pencils, crack open their books, and try to cut back on their filthy drunken brawling.