The more you think about this table, the more you realise that the variation in time is almost as much of an issue as the time itself. Early modern communication was hard. (From Parker’s biography of Charles V). - ThreadSky

duncanweldon.bsky.social • 43 days ago

The more you think about this table, the more you realise that the variation in time is almost as much of an issue as the time itself.
Early modern communication was hard.
(From Parker’s biography of Charles V).

Comments

urbaneprofessor.bsky.social•43 days ago

I'm struck by Palermo! Didn't think the sailing would be that long

blizard.io•43 days ago

Got to take the longer sailing route to avoid Scylla and Charybdis

seanmatthews1.bsky.social•43 days ago

Can also recommend chapter 1 of Blanning's The Pursuit of Glory.

blizard.io•43 days ago

I always think it's crackers about how transatlantic politics was done in the age of sail.

jamesdaustin.bsky.social•43 days ago

Or how we governed India.

Sending blokes off on a ship when we knew there was about a 80% chance they'd arrive and a 40% one they'd be dead within a year, in response to a letter that was 6 months out of date when it arrived.

jamesdaustin.bsky.social•43 days ago

Aubrey-Maturin captures this absurdity well (They ferry a diplomat to India, he dies en route, the whole mission turns to a farce).

It's also who stuff like Robert Clive happened; you had to give people on the ground huge amounts of authority, and if they abused that....

jamesdaustin.bsky.social•43 days ago

Much of the history of the British conquest (which never seems quite the right term) is the East India company receiving a letter saying 'X is happening, I'm going to move troops to Y' them writing back saying 'Please don't do this' and receiving a response, a year later, saying 'we now run Delhi'

joxley.jmoxley.co.uk•43 days ago

I always enjoyed this story:

jamesdaustin.bsky.social•43 days ago

Pretty much - and this just happened repeatedly, often with similarly witty messages back.

Hence why Disraeli (IIRC) said we acquired a empire in a fit of absence of mind. It was basically accidental on the state's part (or, rather, they were screaming 'no')

dominix.bsky.social•43 days ago

Part of it may have been caused by the lack of unified postal service (relays system with spare horses etc). Large empires were in better position here, IIRC Mongolian system was quite fast).

kitjuckes.bsky.social•43 days ago

I can understand London and Palermo but the Royal Spanish Mail was slacking on this basis…

preachypreach.bsky.social•43 days ago

160 miles from the coast makes a big big difference

judah-grunstein.bsky.social•43 days ago

I suspect at least some of the variation in terms of faster than normal delivery has to do with the urgency of the communication, i.e., an early form of express mail.

I imagine some of the variation in terms of slower than normal delivery would make for good Netflix series.

mattrobb.bsky.social•43 days ago

This is a great table.

tomadshead.bsky.social•43 days ago

I suppose I'm a bad person, but my immediate reaction is that the volatility and variability in the time taken for information to arrive must have generated some awesome insider trading opportunities

tomadshead.bsky.social•43 days ago

Although I'm aware that the stories about the Rothschilds getting early news of events like Waterloo are apocryphal

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