The Spiral-Locked Letters of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots
Name
ebljarticle112021.pdf
Size
15.51 MB
Format
Unknown
Checksum (MD5)
0a5e38d7afc5a204e7d93962fae7b29e
Author(s)
Dambrogio, Jana L.
Smith, Daniel Starza
Pellecchia, Jennifer
Wiggins, Alison
Clarke, Andrea
Bryson, Alan
Date Issued
2021
Journal
Electronic British Library Journal (eBLJ)
Publisher
British Library Board
Citation
Dambrogio, Jana et al. "The Spiral-Locked Letters of Elizabeth I and Mary, Queen of Scots." Electronic British Library Journal (2021): 11.1-11.51.
Version
Final published version
Abstract
This article presents evidence about the use of the 'spiral lock', a highly secure letterlocking mechanism used by Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and other letter-writers in early modern Europe, to secure their correspondence shut. After explaining the concept of letterlocking, a centuries-old communication security technique, we demonstrate how the spiral lock worked, using photographs, vector drawings, and videos alongside textual descriptions, and show both how the lock was made and how to recognize it in an archive. The findings are set in multiple contexts: letterlocking as a new field of study; new digital humanities research in the life and letters of Mary, Queen of Scots; and a major exhibition at the British Library on the intersecting lives of the two queens.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Libraries
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://www.bl.uk/eblj/2021articles/article11.html
