@@kathrynportante4433 - People who don't have any place to put a few dozen huge sheets of paper. Which is too bad. More seriously: would the postal service handle anything more elaborate than a conventional envelope with a small wax seal?
@@julietfischer5056 I use these lost techniques for my play sessions on Thousand Year Old Vampire the solitaire Roleplaying game. I don't use it for every turn of my playthrough, but the most memorable events I turned into letters using my favorite techniques I learned from this channel since the game is exploratory in nature and encourages spontaneity and fleeting thoughts, these unopened letters seems right at place and fits in with the theme.
peaches and cream it was used a lot so letters couldn’t pop open while being delivered. Most of the time they would also put a wax seal on the letter after folding it but that was mostly just to show weather or not someone had already opened the letter, and the type of business in the letter (the color of wax. It’s really interesting how many different ways to lick a letter there are
The Guardian newspaper have just published a story saying that the technique used to lock this letter has just been discovered. This video is three years older than the Guardian article.
For everyone confused, the recent technique that was discovered was the spiral letter lock, which was a much, much more complicated version of this that only a handful of people used
It was incredible Mary thought to film this. Considering it was filmed hundreds of years ago, the quality is just as good as anything posted to UA-cam.
Very impressive. I had not heard of letter-locking before today. Thank you very much also for the link to the letter and it's translation from the original French. It was truly moving.
Idk what I was imagining but the article I read made this sound much more sophisticated. Still very neat but I was imaging something more secure n complex.
I thought the letter locking meant that no one could open it easily without knowing the pattern, and if they tried to open it, the information contained within would be destroyed/illegible.
No, just that the recipient would know someone read the letter. If it was secret info, you'd know that your enemies know. But also you entrust the letter to someone you think will deliver it and wont open it, and so if it is opened, then you'd also know the person you trusted is well...not to be trusted again.
Is there any way of ascertaining whether Royals -- such as Mary, Queen of Scots & Elizabeth I -- did their own letterlocking or not? Would this be a task delegated to a lady-in-waiting or a secretary? Or would the letter writer also letterlock the document?
Honestly the level of thought and attention to detail that went into letter locking her final words on paper mightve been what helped her mentally and soothed her a little in those final hours. When I am I credibly stressed or upset I seek out anything that requires most if not ally thoughts to be focused on that task. I see this is a perfect project for such events. Then again she was royalty and I am certain had practiced letter locking a lot in her time there for also mightve been able to do it blind folded without any real thought at all. Hopefully it helped her through that time though.
Note to self: Bring envelopes when travelling back to 1587. This is really fascinating. Now, to remember why I was researching the origin of the phrase "pushing the envelope." Last thought-I would imagine anyone handling locked letters were extremely careful as the result of passing on a tampered letter would likely have been death.
What's the name of the tool she's using to expand the opening? The tool shaped like a bird's beak... the white one with the hole in the.... handle? I think?
I believe Townsends did an episode on paper (or they had a guest speaker and I followed to his page, my apologies for the uncertainty) who explained that common writing paper would be made from rags and was very sturdy. I believe that's what's being used here.
Llegue por el articulo de BBC Mundo. No conocía esta técnica y me sorprende que Maria haya podido realizar eso estando prisionera vaya a saber en que condiciones y tener el temple y serenidad sabiendo que la iban a decapitar. La angustia no solo de morir, sino de morir como un plebeyo cualquiera. Era una reina! Increíble
Currently reading a book called "Spycraft" and it's about the tips/tricks they used to spy on people. This first chapter includes letter -locking, thank you for your videos helped me to see what the process looks like 😊 so fascinating
Wait, I’m completely baffled by why it’d take us so long to understand this lock 🤷🏽♀️ it doesn’t seem complex. “Scholars now say they’ve cracked the code” bruh who are these scholars?
Most likely not the first letter she'd done. In those days, you wrote a letter and either hired someone to deliver it, or asked someone going to the recipient's city or town to do so. 'Locking' was a way for people to know if someone had read and possibly tampered with it.
How do I start learning to do this and how the hell do you find sources on specific historical locked letters? I love everything about this and I'm curious as can be.
Correct. Wetting coarse paper will cause the fibers to irreversibly swell. With a tight enough threading, if this is done near the end of the spiral the letter is locked and needs to be broken in multiple places just to open it.
All I could think was, "your majesty, I doth screwed up cutting and weaving that thin sliver of paper, can you write another copy?" Or would the writer (of high station) have letterlocked it themselves?
Would it be finished with a wax seal? Or you know, just use a wax seal. If someone ripped open the letter what could she do? I guess it means proof to the recipient it has not been tampered with.
I love the artsy aspect of the video, just the cracking paper, but I would love some narration about what kind of paper, the proportions for it to work, etc. I am trying to learn how to do this and have watched the video at least 20 times and cannot do it without tearing the paper strip. The prefolded lines of the letter was confusing at first. I have tried every paper in my studio, including the suggested newsprint, and now am trying freezer paper which is not attractive at all.
You cannot use regular paper. This was what looks like vellum (made with animal part) and is much more durable than regular mass produced pulp paper. Try it with a thicker paper. Maybe a lightweight cardstock that can hold the cuts and folds without tearing. Or see if you can get vellum paper replica (expensive.)
Saw this after reading a B'berg Business Week article, which said that it would be obvious to the recipient if someone opened it. But seems to me that you can open it pretty easily if you're careful, and then "lock" it again. Are they just exaggerating?
How does it end up such that you can't reverse the threading? Is it because the "thread" is no longer long enough or now too wide to grad back through after reversing the process?
When she applied moisture to it adhere to itself. Sort of like a stamp. It's meant to be tamper-evident. If someone undid that there be no way to get it back the way it was without destroying the seals
Though beautiful , I dont understand how the technique could be used for secret messages. How difficult would it be to just tear of the wide part where the locking is done. Am I missing smthg? I am a bit stupid
The spirits of Elizabethans watching this video are thinking, "By the saints madam, we don't have all day!" They likely locked letters so many times that a video made by them today would last 1 minute instead of 4. :) Sealing wax was also used to seal letters and provide evidence of tampering. If you were well off enough to afford parchment or paper, I should think that you could also afford sealing wax. Great video, and a question: what's the point of making a letter tamper-proof if the queen's men are going to intercept it and give it to the queen anyways? She wasn't going to say, "Sir Francis, this letter be locked, I dare not violate federal law!"
Good point. Aside from the difficulty of precisely copying the handwriting style of a sender (and perhaps even the type of paper it was written on), for very sensitive correspondence, visible and/or hidden watermarks could have been included.
Gluing it closed would be more effective. Glue has been around for tens of thousands of years. Might try writing in lemon juice or urine. I did that as a kid and it works. Write between ordinary lines.
@@patrycjamarciniak324, adding saliva or water serves to expand the paper fibers to the point that the spiral threading is locked into place. Only by breaking this seal can one open the letter. This ensures identification, by the recipient, of any tampering while the letter is in transit.
Can't you rip it open? What do they mean by secure? Merely that, you cannot open it without detection? For heaven's sake, they are chopping her head off; I don't think they will be bothered by mail tampering. Also, if the letter is reportedly her last will and testament, why make it so that it can't be opened? (Okay, I read the other comments. And I have read about it before, but the new articles have not re-included this info)
Some narration would be helpful. I'm doing this because this reason. Now I'm doing this other thing because this other reason. Notice how I do this third thing. This helps/prevents X from happening. NOPE, instead just paper sounds.
Interesting 🧐 But the only thing you're doing here is guarding the letter from being tampered with. Obvious sign of tampering would be the broken "lock". If the perpetrator had a delicate touch (or watched this video!) then they could probably undo the lock easily. I think I'll stick with the hot wax seal method, thanks
Adding a bit of water or saliva near thr end of the spiral (and/or other parts) would expand the paper fibers so that any tampering would break the spiral lock. With some letterlocking techniques, multiple breaks need to occur in order to fully open the letter and read its contents. I assume an accidental tearing of one portion of the lock, when transported, could be inferred by the recipient, and privacy could still be guaranteed since the other portions of the spiral remain intact. Remember, not all paper is made the way. Some paper expands more than others in an irreversible process so that with a tight enough letterlock, one cannot undo it without noticeably breaking it.
@@cr0aks I know Europeans were using paper in the 16th century. I'm sure parchment was still used for various reasons but papermaking was pushed to the forefront because of movable-type printing
@@MarcusAsaro No Staples, Office Depot :-). Really, though, this is really interesting. I had never heard of it. I wonder when they started using envelopes.
this wasn't done for every letter; this was done to provide an extra level of security against intercepted letters so they could not be read and then sent on to their finish destination. Imagine trying to re-lock a letter.
@@baker607102 - Read and/or altered. The tampering would show. King Claudius failed to do that, so Hamlet could change the letter with his death warrant.
When you refold it, the holes won't realign exactly, since they've been pulled apart previously. (Ie. All the layers won't lay exactly back down into the hole so neatly.)
Wax has been used for millennia to seal packages. Press in a distinctive seal, and the recipient not only knows the sender but possibly other information. The elaborate slitting and locking is more recent.
Actually, this was a very good technique to ensure privacy. The sender/recipient didn't care about holes and folds as much as if the letter was tampered with. The contents of the locked letter was the important thing, not the look of it. Remember, sealing envelopes didn't come into use until the 19th century.
She was heavily guarded. Unlike today, nobody thought a small blade would allow her to fight her way through security. Her ladies apparently smuggled in a similar tool.
Did they really think that was going to stop someone from reading their letter? Because, that's kind of laughable if so. Was it just meant as a way to show whether or not someone opened it? Again, not very secure. Someone can undo the lock, read the letter, and refold it. That fold was hardly complicated. A paper crane is harder to fold than that thing.
I like learning the techniques, but the sound is just so head-splittingly evil that I feel like ripping out my arteries upon hearing it. Perhaps if you continue doing videos like this, I suggest you remove the original audio and replace it with classical music or something relaxing.
Meanwhile, some of us are lucky to fold a letter to fit the envelope.
who needs envelopes when we have this lost art?
@@kathrynportante4433 - People who don't have any place to put a few dozen huge sheets of paper. Which is too bad.
More seriously: would the postal service handle anything more elaborate than a conventional envelope with a small wax seal?
@@julietfischer5056 I use these lost techniques for my play sessions on Thousand Year Old Vampire the solitaire Roleplaying game. I don't use it for every turn of my playthrough, but the most memorable events I turned into letters using my favorite techniques I learned from this channel since the game is exploratory in nature and encourages spontaneity and fleeting thoughts, these unopened letters seems right at place and fits in with the theme.
Me trying to fit the camping tent back into the bag
I’ve never put a letter in an envelope and I never will.
This is completely fascinating. Wow, I've never heard of letter locking before. Very cool!
peaches and cream it was used a lot so letters couldn’t pop open while being delivered. Most of the time they would also put a wax seal on the letter after folding it but that was mostly just to show weather or not someone had already opened the letter, and the type of business in the letter (the color of wax. It’s really interesting how many different ways to lick a letter there are
The Guardian newspaper have just published a story saying that the technique used to lock this letter has just been discovered. This video is three years older than the Guardian article.
It's the same people. Not sure why they waited three years to publish though.
That's why I'm here too
ROFL NPR is even worse, they just tweeted it today
@@nameunknown007 Same. I thought I accidentally clicked on an old article.
For everyone confused, the recent technique that was discovered was the spiral letter lock, which was a much, much more complicated version of this that only a handful of people used
It was incredible Mary thought to film this. Considering it was filmed hundreds of years ago, the quality is just as good as anything posted to UA-cam.
When you know you are doomed, you find a way. :)
Imagine writing a whole letter then accidentally tearing the long bit while folding it
😅
Very impressive. I had not heard of letter-locking before today. Thank you very much also for the link to the letter and it's translation from the original French. It was truly moving.
Idk what I was imagining but the article I read made this sound much more sophisticated. Still very neat but I was imaging something more secure n complex.
Townsends sent me here. Thank you for those inspirations, as i am very enthusiastic in LARPing, this comes very handy. (Subscribed)
So simple, yet so beautifully effective! Thank you for this amazing demonstration!
simple? it took longer to lock it then write the letter.
I came here from a Townsend video. I love watching people write by hand and play with paper. This has a very relaxing asmr effect.
Ssccrsshhh
I thought the letter locking meant that no one could open it easily without knowing the pattern, and if they tried to open it, the information contained within would be destroyed/illegible.
No, just that the recipient would know someone read the letter. If it was secret info, you'd know that your enemies know. But also you entrust the letter to someone you think will deliver it and wont open it, and so if it is opened, then you'd also know the person you trusted is well...not to be trusted again.
Letterlocking is meant to be nothing more than tamper-evident.
Thanks guys I was confused as to the reasoning behind this technique. Very impressive!
Right! same. im a bit disappointed i gotta say lol
@@nobiazcustomsinc5030 there are other techniques that are more complex, but Mary was locked in a cell with few resources.
Here from NPR. Fascinating subject, thanks for your dedicated research!
This is very relaxing to watch.
This served as a sort of ASMR video for me. Such a soothing sound!
It is totally unintentional asmr! Lovely
I was directed here from Atlas Obscura.
Engrossing video demonstration.
The letter opening at the end revealed why this is called a Butterfly Lock!
Thank goodness there's an option to speed up playback
Sent here by BriansPastPresence. Amazing to see these recreations! You are resurrecting a lost art! Thank you :)
Now to recreate the lost art of handwriting
Cursive, first. Calligraphy, second.
Clever but quite simple really. Great video with lovely ASMR!
Is there any way of ascertaining whether Royals -- such as Mary, Queen of Scots & Elizabeth I -- did their own letterlocking or not? Would this be a task delegated to a lady-in-waiting or a secretary? Or would the letter writer also letterlock the document?
She was in jail at the time.
How the hell did I end up here? I am researching plankton.
LOL 😂
Just been featured on CNN a couple of months ago. Ingenious!
Jana Dambrogio, you are brilliant!!!
agreed
I came from an article where the method discovered is a lot more intricate
Honestly the level of thought and attention to detail that went into letter locking her final words on paper mightve been what helped her mentally and soothed her a little in those final hours. When I am I credibly stressed or upset I seek out anything that requires most if not ally thoughts to be focused on that task. I see this is a perfect project for such events. Then again she was royalty and I am certain had practiced letter locking a lot in her time there for also mightve been able to do it blind folded without any real thought at all. Hopefully it helped her through that time though.
Just incredible to watch this, thanks.
Note to self: Bring envelopes when travelling back to 1587. This is really fascinating. Now, to remember why I was researching the origin of the phrase "pushing the envelope." Last thought-I would imagine anyone handling locked letters were extremely careful as the result of passing on a tampered letter would likely have been death.
No doubt contributed to "don't shoot the messager "
Fascinating!!
What's the name of the tool she's using to expand the opening? The tool shaped like a bird's beak... the white one with the hole in the.... handle? I think?
I think it's a bone folder. Most are shaped differently though.
"Stick"
Hello,
in all your videos, you seem to be using a rather smooth, very stiff quality of paper. What sort of a paper is this?
Vellum, I believe. It's very sturdy.
Now, that would be a shocking waste of vellum.
Not likely traditional vellum. There's some paper subs that are quite sturdy and imitate it.
It's neither traditional vellum nor modern vellum (tracing paper) from what I can see.
I believe Townsends did an episode on paper (or they had a guest speaker and I followed to his page, my apologies for the uncertainty) who explained that common writing paper would be made from rags and was very sturdy. I believe that's what's being used here.
Very intriguing. What kind of paper is that that you were able to lick and it adhered to itself?
Llegue por el articulo de BBC Mundo. No conocía esta técnica y me sorprende que Maria haya podido realizar eso estando prisionera vaya a saber en que condiciones y tener el temple y serenidad sabiendo que la iban a decapitar. La angustia no solo de morir, sino de morir como un plebeyo cualquiera. Era una reina! Increíble
Currently reading a book called "Spycraft" and it's about the tips/tricks they used to spy on people. This first chapter includes letter -locking, thank you for your videos helped me to see what the process looks like 😊 so fascinating
Wait, I’m completely baffled by why it’d take us so long to understand this lock 🤷🏽♀️ it doesn’t seem complex. “Scholars now say they’ve cracked the code” bruh who are these scholars?
Yup...seems like the whole structure should be clear the minute you see the envelope closed then open
LOL. I was just going to say when I was a kid it was far more complex trying to make a hockey puck out of paper to play table hockey.
This was a basic example of letter locking. her's was far more complex, requiring more than 30 steps
@@gericopitch6202 OOoooh there it is. Thanks for the explanation!!
This video is up there with "Sounds of Turttles Mating"
Kids now be like “What’s a letter?”
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣facts
Wow. I wonder how long it took her to learn this. The medieval version of encryption.
Most likely not the first letter she'd done. In those days, you wrote a letter and either hired someone to deliver it, or asked someone going to the recipient's city or town to do so. 'Locking' was a way for people to know if someone had read and possibly tampered with it.
I always find it interesting how the sciences constantly underestimate the intelligence and creativity of ancestors.
How do I start learning to do this and how the hell do you find sources on specific historical locked letters? I love everything about this and I'm curious as can be.
By now, you've
@@julietfischer5056 I've?
Wow...and all we need do is fold it in order to fit into an already made envelope!
Looks like you could still open it and relock it.
That's what I thought too... maybe by wetting it they kind of "set" the paper and make it difficult to unthread?
Correct. Wetting coarse paper will cause the fibers to irreversibly swell. With a tight enough threading, if this is done near the end of the spiral the letter is locked and needs to be broken in multiple places just to open it.
This is amazing. Thanks.
I'm here from the news article.
All I could think was, "your majesty, I doth screwed up cutting and weaving that thin sliver of paper, can you write another copy?" Or would the writer (of high station) have letterlocked it themselves?
Would it be finished with a wax seal? Or you know, just use a wax seal. If someone ripped open the letter what could she do? I guess it means proof to the recipient it has not been tampered with.
I love the artsy aspect of the video, just the cracking paper, but I would love some narration about what kind of paper, the proportions for it to work, etc. I am trying to learn how to do this and have watched the video at least 20 times and cannot do it without tearing the paper strip. The prefolded lines of the letter was confusing at first. I have tried every paper in my studio, including the suggested newsprint, and now am trying freezer paper which is not attractive at all.
You cannot use regular paper. This was what looks like vellum (made with animal part) and is much more durable than regular mass produced pulp paper. Try it with a thicker paper. Maybe a lightweight cardstock that can hold the cuts and folds without tearing. Or see if you can get vellum paper replica (expensive.)
Saw this after reading a B'berg Business Week article, which said that it would be obvious to the recipient if someone opened it. But seems to me that you can open it pretty easily if you're careful, and then "lock" it again. Are they just exaggerating?
How does it end up such that you can't reverse the threading? Is it because the "thread" is no longer long enough or now too wide to grad back through after reversing the process?
When she applied moisture to it adhere to itself. Sort of like a stamp. It's meant to be tamper-evident. If someone undid that there be no way to get it back the way it was without destroying the seals
Did they fold the paper first before they wrote the letter to ensure they didn't have any words on the outside?
They wrote a lot of letters back then - I'm guessing that having words where the holes end up would be a childish mistake.
The writers had plenty of practice in this. I suppose some might have lightly scored the boundaries of the writing surface to be certain.
Though beautiful , I dont understand how the technique could be used for secret messages. How difficult would it be to just tear of the wide part where the locking is done. Am I missing smthg? I am a bit stupid
The spirits of Elizabethans watching this video are thinking, "By the saints madam, we don't have all day!" They likely locked letters so many times that a video made by them today would last 1 minute instead of 4. :) Sealing wax was also used to seal letters and provide evidence of tampering. If you were well off enough to afford parchment or paper, I should think that you could also afford sealing wax. Great video, and a question: what's the point of making a letter tamper-proof if the queen's men are going to intercept it and give it to the queen anyways? She wasn't going to say, "Sir Francis, this letter be locked, I dare not violate federal law!"
Mary Queen Of Scots was imprisoned and her ladies had to smuggle in tools for this.
This is cool asf.
Awesome.
Just read an article in the Guardian Newspaper-that why I’m on here.😊
Very interesting
1:50. Sealing with a bit of blood also identifies the sender.
Not in past centuries.
Depending on the sender and the contents, the blood often came after the letter was sent.
Why didn't those intercepting the letter simply copy it and redo it in exactly the same way?
The recipient would probably have other letters from the same sender, so you'd have to be *VERY* sure of your mimicry.
The complexity of the techniques ensures that there will be signs of tampering. Watch the other videos to see what people did.
Good point. Aside from the difficulty of precisely copying the handwriting style of a sender (and perhaps even the type of paper it was written on), for very sensitive correspondence, visible and/or hidden watermarks could have been included.
Gluing it closed would be more effective. Glue has been around for tens of thousands of years. Might try writing in lemon juice or urine. I did that as a kid and it works. Write between ordinary lines.
If you glue it, you can glue it back. The point is to show if someone intercepted and opened a letter.
I don't get it? What's the purpose? You can just tear it and still be able to read it.
Should’t the last fold be inside, hiding the writing?
It's kind of like the address the first two words are 'Au roi' meaning 'to the king'
Was it glue at the end?
spit, it looked like
What role does the spit play in the process? Does it 'glue' it a bit?
@@patrycjamarciniak324 That's the idea. It at least keeps the string from falling out on its own.
by string i mean the sliver of paper
@@patrycjamarciniak324, adding saliva or water serves to expand the paper fibers to the point that the spiral threading is locked into place. Only by breaking this seal can one open the letter. This ensures identification, by the recipient, of any tampering while the letter is in transit.
But what did the letter say and who was it addressed to?
I don't get it. What's stopping someone from reading it and then just putting the lock back?
What is the curved instrument she is using with the hole, it looks like bone?
A bone folder, used in bookbinding.
@@alaingiguere9197 Thank you! I wonder where I might find one?
end-to-end encryption 100% secure messaging 😋
Can't you rip it open? What do they mean by secure? Merely that, you cannot open it without detection?
For heaven's sake, they are chopping her head off; I don't think they will be bothered by mail tampering.
Also, if the letter is reportedly her last will and testament, why make it so that it can't be opened?
(Okay, I read the other comments. And I have read about it before, but the new articles have not re-included this info)
Some narration would be helpful.
I'm doing this because this reason.
Now I'm doing this other thing because this other reason.
Notice how I do this third thing. This helps/prevents X from happening.
NOPE, instead just paper sounds.
Relaxing* paper sounds.
Jeremiah Galli yeah, like how the Baumgardner restorationist does it!
It's pretty obvious, no?
Remember too Friends, that these Letters were written upon animal skin Parchment; not modern wood-based Paper.
Ye Olde Encryption
Interesting 🧐 But the only thing you're doing here is guarding the letter from being tampered with. Obvious sign of tampering would be the broken "lock".
If the perpetrator had a delicate touch (or watched this video!) then they could probably undo the lock easily.
I think I'll stick with the hot wax seal method, thanks
💜
ASMR history lesson
My god, it takes that LONG to open or close a letter!!!!!! I’m bored waiting….
Why not just use string to tie it
I mean, it's not like people couldn't rip through the paper🤷♂️
This only prevents the letter from opening on its own. Anybody can open it.
Adding a bit of water or saliva near thr end of the spiral (and/or other parts) would expand the paper fibers so that any tampering would break the spiral lock.
With some letterlocking techniques, multiple breaks need to occur in order to fully open the letter and read its contents. I assume an accidental tearing of one portion of the lock, when transported, could be inferred by the recipient, and privacy could still be guaranteed since the other portions of the spiral remain intact.
Remember, not all paper is made the way. Some paper expands more than others in an irreversible process so that with a tight enough letterlock, one cannot undo it without noticeably breaking it.
@@MarcusAsaro Did they even have "paper" back then? I thought they used parchment (scraped calfskin).
@@cr0aks I know Europeans were using paper in the 16th century. I'm sure parchment was still used for various reasons but papermaking was pushed to the forefront because of movable-type printing
@@MarcusAsaro No Staples, Office Depot :-). Really, though, this is really interesting. I had never heard of it. I wonder when they started using envelopes.
The point isn't to stop someone from opening it, it's to show that someone has intercepted and read it
Why do people call that "intricate"?
I have not written letters in years, do kids still write letters?
I smell a new trend for hipsters.
Or would that be invasion of privacy ?
Can you imagine doing that every time you wrote a letter? I thought all they did was fold it over in thirds and drip some wax on the edges.
this wasn't done for every letter; this was done to provide an extra level of security against intercepted letters so they could not be read and then sent on to their finish destination. Imagine trying to re-lock a letter.
@@baker607102 - Read and/or altered. The tampering would show.
King Claudius failed to do that, so Hamlet could change the letter with his death warrant.
Mary could have just used a wax stamp to seal the letter. It would have been much easier
J S Pay attention. She was in prison. She didn't have that stuff.
@@653j521 how do you know what they didn't and did not have access to
Omg wear gloves it is so precious
You would have thought by then someone would have invented the envelope. Or did they, but highborn royal snobs didn't want to use it?
couldn't someone just undo it carefully without tearing it? Unless it was sealed with wax, but did that only start happening years later?
Why would it be shorter than at the beginning? It seems you rip the 'tail' only when you open the letter, don't you?
@@patrycjamarciniak324 Yeah I don't get it either. We need the experts to chime in. *Waves at the person who uploaded this*
When you refold it, the holes won't realign exactly, since they've been pulled apart previously. (Ie. All the layers won't lay exactly back down into the hole so neatly.)
Wax has been used for millennia to seal packages. Press in a distinctive seal, and the recipient not only knows the sender but possibly other information.
The elaborate slitting and locking is more recent.
I think the techniques used by kids in the 90s were quicker, less destructive and just as secure.
This is so ASMR lol
The paper had to be sturdy. Recycled paper will not make the cut.😮
Huh!
Does anyone else get ASMR tingles?
Thanks from now on I'll only send letterlocked bootycalls via pigeon post
This seems like a terrible technique, not least because it leaves a hole in the middle of the letter. Is this really the best they could do?
Actually, this was a very good technique to ensure privacy. The sender/recipient didn't care about holes and folds as much as if the letter was tampered with. The contents of the locked letter was the important thing, not the look of it.
Remember, sealing envelopes didn't come into use until the 19th century.
The way i see it, the post man can easily open the letter, read it and fold it back. How will that go wrong??
She was in prison, but had a sharp instrument. Hmmm...
She was heavily guarded. Unlike today, nobody thought a small blade would allow her to fight her way through security. Her ladies apparently smuggled in a similar tool.
Very interesting, but the crinkling paper noise was too much to bear so I had to watch it on mute. This video needs a misophonia warning! :)
asmr to me
Misophonia is encouraged on youtube
Seems absurd!
Did they really think that was going to stop someone from reading their letter? Because, that's kind of laughable if so.
Was it just meant as a way to show whether or not someone opened it?
Again, not very secure. Someone can undo the lock, read the letter, and refold it. That fold was hardly complicated. A paper crane is harder to fold than that thing.
why do you use envelopes if i can just open it up and take the letter out
Do we really think Mary, Queen of Scots, spent 5 minutes folding a letter up before she got her head chopped off?
What else did she have to do? Must have been meditative.
I like learning the techniques, but the sound is just so head-splittingly evil that I feel like ripping out my arteries upon hearing it. Perhaps if you continue doing videos like this, I suggest you remove the original audio and replace it with classical music or something relaxing.
Great for arts and crafts. Not very historically accurate though.
Useless.
Lmao