Making a Book in the Middle Ages Took Years and Was Literally Physical Torture

08/13/20 • 46 min

Making a book in the Middle Ages was extremely hard work. It took the skin of several calves to make the vellum (a writing material), an army of monks in a scriptorium, rare ink for the illustrations, and six months’ time. Writing for hours on end was torture (monks called it just that when they wrote in book margins, which read like ransom notes). Yet if not for the work of these monks, every single work from antiquity would have been lost. Almost no writing from ancient Greece or Rome survives in its original form; all of it was copied and preserved in medieval monasteries.
In this episode, we explore the arduous process of making a book. We will specifically look at the Codex Gigas, the largest medieval book in the world (it’s a yard tall, 19 inches across, 9 inches thick, and weighs 165 pounds). It is also known as The Devil’s Bible because according to legend, the author sold his soul to the devil to complete it.
Overall, we have these monks to thank for keeping ancient science and philosophy alive. If not for their punishing efforts to record these ancient documents, they would have been lost forever.

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Martha Dodd: The American Soviet Spy and Hitler’s Would-Be Lover Who Dreamed of a Communist World

In 1933, Martha Dodd, a 24-year-old aspiring writer who had already had several affairs and a failed marriage embarked with her family to Berlin, where her father was America's ambassador to Hitler's regime. Within a few weeks, she was romantically involved with Rudolf Diels, the first director of the Gestapo. Dodd was so celebrated by the Nazi elite that some believed she could become Hitler's wife (the two met but nothing came of it). She soon soured on the Nazis after witnessing their brutal anti-Semitism, but became involved with Boris Vinogradov, an agent of the Soviet secret police. Over the next several decades, Dodd's life was a whirlwind of spying, communist recruitment in America, and eventually, permanent exile.
Dodd was a dreamer who believed in the power of communism to right the wrongs of an unjust. But after decades abroad (first in Mexico, then in Prague) she ended up disillusioned with the promises of the Soviet Union. Her story is one of what happens when you cast your lot with a movement that ends up losing its political and ideological battles.

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Teaser: Forging a President, Part 1

This is a preview of a members-only series on Teddy Roosevelt's years in the Dakota Badlands called Forging a President. Subscribe today for access to all premium episodes! https://patreon.com/unplugged

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