Busman's holiday

[ossamenta]

Today I had the day off, not spending time in the sunny outdoors, but sitting in the university library for about eight hours reading Medieval German guild regulations. Unfortunately not all books complied with the Bodleian's photocopying regulations so I had to do a lot of copying by hand. It's a pain in the ass, particularly when you have to go back and check for spelling errors. It's not just the changes in spelling over 600 years, there are also changes within Germany. Today I've gone through regulations for Cologne and Lüneburg, and tomorrow I'm back at the library, going through bibliographies to see which other guild regulations are available. I know that the university library have some digitized, which means I hopefully can read them at home, if the log-in works. Others I will have to order from the stacks, and some I will have to read at the British Library in London. Hopefully I will find some nice patterns, or some exciting details that can be of use for my tanning Ph.D. idea.