File:Book of Hours (Use of Metz) Fol. 27r, Decorated Initials.tif - Wikimedia Commons

Premodern isn’t a time period, because there were so many eras going on in different places in the world at various temporal instants. You can’t limit it to “the West”, either, because the whole concept of Western Christendom only arose in opposition to Islam, and the ideas and ways of life that I mean were bouncing back and forth1. Let’s consider it something like “the Middle Ages and their antecedents” to be expressive, acknowledging “the Middle Ages” are hardly more conceptually precise.

future : past :: cutting-edge technologist : ?

They say that when you’re talking about the future or the past, you’re really talking about the present. So let’s pretend that’s all transitive: what can it mean to think of the past with the same creative spirit we acknowledge in thinking about the future?

This obviously points to the Society of Creative Anachronism, but it’s not quite what I’m exploring2. The LARPing element is fun, but not essential to what I mean, and a proper commitment to accuracy is only sometimes more interesting than a future imagined only in terms of what seems most probable.

Stefan’s Florilegium

One of the most impressive directories ever assembled, to my mind, though I’m not quite sure “directory” is the right term when one also archives emails from mailservs. I miss the old <frame> look of the page, but I’m sure there are good reasons for the change.

  1. Besides, cultural jingoism is boring as hell. Give me syncreticism or give me death. ↩

  2. Even as I scrabble greedily at its resources, abundant and plain-text ↩