#medieval documents

When historian Rowan Dorin first stepped onto the Stanford campus in early 2017, he made it a habit to visit Green Library every week to dig through its collection of medieval documents and objects.

After a few months, Dorin, an assistant professor of history specializing in medieval Europe, discovered something out of the ordinary.

Three leaves of ancient parchment were labeled as a Hebrew translation of text about grammar, but its margins had Latin words like fish, capers and dill.

"It looked like some sort of food dictionary," said Dorin about his first impression of the documents. "There didn't seem to be anything grammatical about it."

"May the curse of God and the martyr Thomas fall on this man who has offered violence to me concerning my own property." At this word the rich man, struck by the divine hand, fell heavily forward on the pommel of his saddle, where, groaning, he moaned, "I die"; for the blow had stopped his breathe."

I DIE

I DIE!!

Like he just keeled over laughing at the thought of this silly old lady cursing him and somehow knew tumblr lingo but then no one else at the time got it and it went down as cannon.