- The images are original and simply sharpened by AI since the typeface was not always clear.
- In the video, there are a few AI generated images to try to convey what life was like at that time
- The music for the video is 16th century: from the Dansereye by Tielman Susato (1551)
The Orbis Sensualium Pictus of Comenius has
been a fabulous source of vocabulary and has provided a platform for expanding
on the content. First published in 1658, the Orbis Pictus is a
series of detailed and numbered images organised thematically, with
accompanying Latin and, in the 1659 edition, English texts. It is a constant
time-travelling companion to the 17th century. However, I paused for a while
and wondered what life was like for the kids who were reading it, those who
were teaching from it – and the man who sold it.
UK members in particular may be interested to know that the
Latin-English version of this book (which is used in all the posts) was
published in 1659, the year after the death of Oliver Cromwell but before the
Restoration of the Monarchy:
[Images #1 and #2]
JOH. AMOS COMENIUS's
VISIBLE WORLD.
OR,
A Picture and Nomenclature of all the chief
Things that are in the world, and of
Mens Employments therein.
Translated into English,
By CHARLES HOOLE, Teacher of a
Private Grammar-School in
Lothbury, LONDON.
For the use of young Latine-Scholars.
LONDON,
Printed for J. Kirton, at the Kings-
Arms, in Saint Paules Church-yard, 1659.
(1) The ‘Kings-Arms’ refers to a sign protruding from above
the shop front. However, not all businesses had signs indicating what they
sold. Saint Paul’s Church Yard was the hub of the London book trade, and so
signs which depicted, for example, a bell, or an ‘angell’ were used to
distinguish one shop from another. The name ‘Kings-Arms’ was used throughout
the Cromwellian period (other publications refer to it), and so it was an
equivalent of a legal trade-mark rather than any (unwise) declaration of support
for the monarchy. If Cromwell could order the beheading of a king, then no
bookseller was going to stand up to him.
(2) Images #3 and #4: Charles Hoole’s school was at
Tokenhouse Yard, Lothbury. The frontispiece of another work by Hoole
specifically states this:
Aesop. Æsop’s fables, English and Latine. … By
Charles Hoole, Mr. in Arts, L.C. Oxon; and teacher of a private grammar school,
in the Token-House in Lothbury, near the Royall
Exchange, London. London: Printed by W. Wilson, for the Company of
Stationers, 1657.
That same area is described in terrifying detail by Defoe
during the Plague Year of 1665 although, by that point, Hoole was no longer
working there:
“Passing through Token-House Yard in Lothbury, of a sudden a
casement violently opened just over my head, and a woman gave three frightful
screeches, and then cried, “O death, death, death!” in a most inimitable tone,
and which struck me with horror, and a chillness in my very blood. There was
nobody to be seen in the whole street, neither did any other window open, for
people had no curiosity now in any case, nor could anybody help one another.”
In 1665, 3880 Londoners died of the plague – in one week.
That district was razed to the ground in 1666 by the Great
Fire of London.
(3) Image #5: Saint Paul’s Churchyard, the location of
Kirton’s shop, suffered the same fate. One of his clients was Samuel Pepys, who
notes in his diary: ‘I hear Kirton my bookseller, poor man, is dead; I believe
of grief for his losses by the fire’. (11th November 1667)
(4) Image #6: It’s just one book, but it survived those troubled times – although, tragically, there were thousands of people who did not. The book had a further edition in 1672 – after the Restoration – that no longer simply refers to the ‘Kings-Arms’ shop sign, but to Charles II, the King himself.
