A letter to the Lord of Castelneuf from his nephew. Mousel, France (1450s-1500s),' (UH0129)

Modelled after Musée de La Poste, Paris France, MP 8186.

Model found in the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries (MIT), Unlocking History Research Group archive, MC 0760.

This letter is the earliest example we have found of letterlocking where the lock is extant. The letter writer wrote on a remnant of paper and folded it in half, long-edge to long-edge, to create a narrow bifolium. The substrate was folded in half twice, long-edge to long-edge, aligning the fore-edges of the bifolium with the gutter fold. The long narrow shape was then tri-folded. There is no evidence of an adhesive. Perhaps there was complicated lacing that went around the packet in a particular way. In its opened state, a single slit appears in eight of the twelve panels of the letter. There appears to be no security built into this letter. In its locked state, layers of the folded and tied letterpacket can be separated to view areas of the text inside.

Produced by MIT Video Production. Directed and demonstrated by Jana Dambrogio. Funded by the Seaver Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries in support of our project, “Unlocking History.” Special thanks to Musée de La Poste staff, Monika Nowacka, MIT Libraries staff, Ayako Letizia, Emily Hishta Cohen, MIT Video Production staff, Camille Dekeyser, Dr David van der Linden, Dr. Rebekah Ahrendt, and Daniel Starza Smith.

Citation information: Authors: Jana Dambrogio and the Unlocking History Research Group. Title: ‘A letter to the Lord of Castelneuf from his nephew. Mousel, France (1450s-1500s),' Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0129/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 129. Date filmed: November 2017. Duration: 1:41. Date posted: November 2017. Video URL: [Insert URL]. Date accessed: [Date].

Copyright 2017–present. Jana Dambrogio, the Unlocking History Research Group, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). All rights reserved. The following copyrighted material is made available under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) License https://creativecommons.org/licenses/.... Contact the MIT Technology Licensing Office for any other licensing inquiries.

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YouTube URL: http://bit.ly/mp8186