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Erik Kwakkel

Personal blog · medievalbooks.nlhistoryculture

Erik Kwakkel writes medievalbooks, a personal blog at medievalbooks.nl about history and culture. Since 2014, 21 different Hacker News readers have linked it 67 times, most often “Chain, Chest, Curse: Combating Book Theft in Medieval Times”. It is still writing: the last post was on 2024-11-26, and you can follow it by feed.

Visit the blog
67mentions?
21HN people?
2014–2022first – last linked?
Links on Hacker News per year · peak 24 in 2015

Too few sampled comments (12) to say how often HN recommends it.?

Why HN links it

Erik Kwakkel's blog on medieval books: hidden texts in bindings, X-rayed fragments, medieval ads and spam, and medieval fonts. Commenters call it a favourite with lots of good reading in the archives.

Summarised by Claude from a sample of 12 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.

Erik Kwakkel blogging about medieval manuscripts

Most-linked posts?

  1. Chain, Chest, Curse: Combating Book Theft in Medieval Times
    3 people · 3 mentions · first linked 2015-07-16
  2. /2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/
    2 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2016-08-05
  3. The Oldest Advertisements for Books
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2014-12-08
  4. Judging a Book by its Cover
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-11-12
  5. /2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times/
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2017-04-21
  6. Cracking Codes in Medieval Books
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2015-02-20
  7. The Secrets of Medieval Fonts
    2 people · 2 mentions · first linked 2016-04-29

What Hacker News says?

  1. coldpie · 2017-04-21Recommends
    If you want to go really old school with these kinds of ancillary notes, check out https://medievalbooks.nl/ especially for example: https://medievalbooks.nl/2016/02/26/dirty-old-books/ https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/24/rare-medieval-name-tags/ https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-time...

    Comment linking /2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times/

    on “Calculus Made Easy (1914) [pdf]”
  2. benbreen · 2014-10-12

    Submitted Medieval Desktops as a story · 153 points

    HN discussion
  3. tribe · 2015-06-11
    There are examples of medieval books with ads in them, so it seems such advertisements are older than mass media or the printing press. http://medievalbooks.nl/2014/12/05/medieval-spam-the-oldest-...

    Comment linking /2014/12/05/medieval-spam-the-oldest-advertisements-for-books/

    on “The next version of Safari will let users block ads on iPhones and iPads”
  4. Thevet · 2015-04-23

    Submitted Dirt in Medieval Books as a story · 133 points

    HN discussion
  5. gus_massa · 2016-09-11
    Somewhat related: "X-Rays Expose a Hidden Medieval Library" https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10758257 (86 points, 267 days ago, 6 comments)

    Comment linking /2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/

    on “Can computers read through a book page by page without opening it?”
  6. robin_reala · 2016-04-29

    Submitted The Secrets of Medieval Fonts as a story · 102 points

    HN discussion
  7. userbinator · 2017-04-23
    Stone tablets are more rugged than other media, but others have survived; here's an example someone else posted recently: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-time...

    Comment linking /2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times/

    on “Apple Forces Recyclers to Shred All iPhones and Macbooks”
  8. Thevet · 2014-11-01

    Submitted Destroying Medieval Books as a story · 87 points

    HN discussion
  9. coldpie · 2016-08-05Recommends
    Tangentially related, but people who are interested in digitally archiving ancient materials might enjoy reading this article from one of my favorite blogs: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m...

    Comment linking /2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/

    on “Who’s the First Person in History Whose Name We Know? (2015)”
  10. robin_reala · 2015-12-18

    Submitted X-Rays Expose a Hidden Medieval Library as a story · 86 points

    HN discussion
  11. coldpie · 2017-05-05
    This is only tangential (I don't think the TSA is doing this), but this is similar to a fascinating technique for finding writing on discarded paper used as filler in bindings and such in old books. https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m...

    Comment linking /2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/

    on “Why Is the TSA Scanning Paper?”
  12. Thevet · 2014-10-28

    Submitted Hugging a Medieval Book as a story · 83 points

    HN discussion
  13. coldpie · 2022-02-21Recommends
    A bunch more really great articles along these lines here: https://medievalbooks.nl/ A favorite: https://medievalbooks.nl/2018/09/20/me-myself-and-i/

    Comment linking /2018/09/20/me-myself-and-i/

    on “Medieval Photoshop”
  14. diodorus · 2015-01-26

    Submitted Medieval Speech Bubbles as a story · 66 points

    HN discussion
  15. coldpie · 2020-11-16Recommends
    Also sometimes the book bindings themselves contain hidden texts, as they recycled old scraps for the materials[1]. This stuff is fascinating and there's a bunch of great related content on this blog. [1] https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m...

    Comment linking /2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/

    on “Stolen irreplaceable books found under floor of Romanian house”
  16. jslakro · 2020-08-02

    Submitted The Architecture of the Medieval Page (2018) as a story · 60 points

    HN discussion
  17. coldpie · 2020-05-21Recommends
    Unrelated but similar article about using X-rays to read text on paper fragments used during the binding process in the medieval ages: https://medievalbooks.nl/2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-m... The whole MedievalBooks.nl blog is fascinating, lots of good reading there.

    Comment linking /2015/12/18/x-rays-expose-a-hidden-medieval-library/

    on “Dead Sea Scroll fragments thought to be blank reveal text”
  18. benbreen · 2014-11-28

    Submitted Locating Books in the Medieval Library as a story · 59 points

    HN discussion
  19. coldpie · 2017-07-19Recommends
    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/ Sadly not updated in over a year, but there are a lot of gems in the archives.

    Comment linking /

    on “Everyday Life and Fatal Hazard in Sixteenth-Century England”
  20. diodorus · 2015-07-16

    Submitted Chain, Chest, Curse: Combating Book Theft in Medieval Times as a story · 53 points

    HN discussion
  21. coldpie · 2016-04-29Recommends
    This is one of my favorite blogs on the Internet. For some reason, browsers decided to abandon the standard and useful RSS meta tag, but medievalbooks does indeed have one if you wish to subscribe: https://medievalbooks.nl/feed/

    Comment linking /feed/

    on “The Secrets of Medieval Fonts”
  22. benbreen · 2015-01-03

    Submitted The Medieval Origins of the Modern Footnote as a story · 41 points

    HN discussion
  23. coldpie · 2015-12-15Recommends
    If you like this kind of stuff, http://medievalbooks.nl/ is a great blog about old books. The current first post is kind of dry, but some recent highlights include: http://medievalbooks.nl/2015/04/17/texting-in-medieval-times... http://medievalbooks.nl/2015/07/10/chain-chest-curse-combati... "Who so me found or who so me took; I am Jon Foss's book"

    Comment linking /2015/07/10/chain-chest-curse-combating-book-theft-in-medieval-times/

    on “Old Book Illustrations”
  24. Petiver · 2015-05-24

    Submitted Medieval Bargain Books as a story · 39 points

    HN discussion
  25. pepys · 2014-10-25

    Submitted The Skinny on Bad Parchment as a story · 39 points

    HN discussion
  26. benbreen · 2015-02-20

    Submitted Cracking Codes in Medieval Books as a story · 36 points

    HN discussion
  27. Petiver · 2015-09-22

    Submitted Medieval Posters as a story · 35 points

    HN discussion
  28. benbreen · 2014-09-21

    Submitted Medieval Selfies as a story · 33 points

    HN discussion
  29. benbreen · 2014-12-08

    Submitted The Oldest Advertisements for Books as a story · 31 points

    HN discussion
  30. diodorus · 2015-06-06

    Submitted Half Full, Half Empty: The Peculiar Medieval Page as a story · 27 points

    HN discussion

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