I've just finished my first day at the archives, and I am brain-dead. I also feel as though my eyes and throat are still self-protectively tightened against the dust of ages (it really is the dust of ages.) But--I just finished my first day in the archives! I'll need to build up my dust-resistance, but this is really it: I am actually obtaining and reading the original documents relevant to my research! This is both thrilling and terrifying. I'm sure most (all?) fellow graduate students can relate to the horrible fear of Doing Things Wrong (what if I am not looking at these documents efficiently and intelligently?!?) I also had to overcome irrational fears: for instance, that my ringing of a small bell next to the imposingly solid door of the archives would result in a "Who goes there?!" interrogation. It resulted in the door being buzzed open, and a very pleasant woman giving me the paperwork (and the directory of relevant documents compiled in the 1920s and typed up in the 70s) which I needed. I also half expected an archivist to pop up from somewhere to ask if I was really qualified to do this. When the archivist did pop up over my shoulder, however, it was to ask how I was doing. He then proceeded to inform me that most of the extant hospital documents were account books (this I knew,) but that since I was doing social history, I might be interested in the leper hospital's chartulary, which contained, among other tidbits, information about one time in the fifteenth century when a leper, without permission, left the hospital to attend the carnival celebrations of Fastnacht. To this day, Mainz takes the carnival season very seriously, and I can't wait to find out all available details about the adventures of the partying leper. I'm also glad to know that Mainz's chief archivist has fifteenth-century leper stories at his fingertips. More soon!
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