Episode 151: Sick to Death
The History of English Podcast
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The History of the Library of the Monasteries
The monasteries were dissolved in the late 1530s. Parchment used for drum skins, roof insulation, drink coasters and dust covers for schoolbooks. Book collector John Bail took inventory of libraries before they were destroyed. He wrote that parchment was used to clean boots and candlesticks but most insulting of all, it had been used to serve their jakes.
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