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I think that it would be jumping to conclusions to say that, simply because the book was repurposed, it wasn't first read by the crew. Early modern books often
by benbreen 9y ago
I think that it would be jumping to conclusions to say that, simply because the book was repurposed, it wasn't first read by the crew. Early modern books often passed from owner to owner and became extremely worn down. It's easy to imagine a pirate reading the book (likely aloud to a group due to low literacy rates) and then after it had become too waterlogged to want to hang on to, finding a new use for it. That scenario doesn't imply that they thought of it as trash.
- kurthr 9y agoI would be intrigued to know the percentage of pirate gunners of 1800 that could read at all. Best guess is less than 30% and most of those, barely literate. England was, however, one of the best educated countries of the day. https://ourworldindata.org/literacy/ https://ourworldindata.org/literacy/