A letter folded, tied, and placed in a wrapper, Europe (1702) (UH0049, UH0097)

Modelled after letter DB-1299 in the Brienne Collection, Sound & Vision, with permission.

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

A very rare example of a tie remaining on a letterpacket.

In 1926, a seventeenth-century trunk of letters was given to the Museum voor Communicatie – now Sound & Vision – in The Hague, which was then, as now, the center of government, politics, and trade in The Netherlands. The trunk belonged to two of the most active postmasters of the day, Simon de Brienne and Marie Germain, a couple at the heart of European communication networks. The chest contains an extraordinary archive: 2600 "locked" letters sent from all over Europe to this axis of communication, none of which were ever delivered. In the seventeenth century, the recipient also paid postal and delivery charges. But if the addressee was deceased, absent, or uninterested, no fees could be collected. Postmasters usually destroyed such "dead letters," but the Briennes preserved them, hoping that someone would retrieve the letters – and pay the postage. Hence the nickname for the trunk: "the piggy bank" ("spaarpotje" in Dutch). The trunk freezes a moment in history, allowing us to glimpse the early modern world as it went about its daily business. The letters are uncensored, unedited, and 600 of them even remain unopened. The archive itself has remained virtually untouched by historians. Our international and interdisciplinary team of researchers is undertaking a process of preservation, digitization, transcription, editing, and identification of letterlocking categories and formats that will reveal its secrets for the first time – even, we hope, those of the unopened letters.

The Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered research team comprises Rebekah Ahrendt, Nadine Akkerman, Jana Dambrogio, David van der Linden, and Daniel Starza Smith. Thanks to Koos Havelaar, Ruben Verwaal, and the Unlocking History team. Produced by MIT Video Production. Directed and demonstrated by Jana Dambrogio. Funded by the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO), and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries. Special thanks Ayako Letizia, Annie Dunn, Emily Hishta Cohen, MIT Video Production staff, Mary Uthuppuru, Brien Beidler, and the late Simone Felton.

Citation information: Authors: Jana Dambrogio and the Signed, Sealed, and Undelivered and Unlocking History Research Groups. Title: "Brienne Postal Archive: A letter folded, tied, and placed in a wrapper, Europe (1702)," Letterlocking Instructional Videos. Unlocking History number 0049, 0097/Letterlocking Unique Video number: 097. Date filmed: October 2016. Duration:5:49. Date posted: October 2016. Video URL: [Insert URL]. Date accessed: [Date].

Copyright 2016–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/TiedLetter or    • A letter folded, tied, and placed in ...