Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2017 April 21

= April 21 =

Steganography in books
Are there any well-known examples of steganography in books such as novels, biographies, textbooks, etc? I'm wondering if an author has ever concealed a message to someone (a lover, say, or a publisher) using a method such as taking the first letter of each chapter or paragraph, or some similar steganographic technique. Many thanks, --Viennese Waltz 07:43, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Probably not what you're after, but I found Stenographer's Hands by David H. Keller (1928) about a bizarre eugenics programme to breed perfect stenographers, which goes badly wrong 200 years down the line (warning - the last page of the story is missing from the Google Books preview dammit!). Alansplodge (talk) 12:04, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Possibly a trivial example, but the poem at the end of Through the Looking Glass has Alice's full name as an acrostic. See Alice_Liddell. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:26, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * An example of digital steganography i.e. concealment of a text message in a data file, is found in the "Genesis" or first block of the Bitcoin blockchain. The block's Coinbase entry contains the dated title of a newspaper article, proving that no bitcoins existed before that date. The author's Satoshi Nakamoto identity is uncertain. Blooteuth (talk) 12:47, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The children's book Chasing Vermeer has a cleverly hidden message in the illustrations, but it's perhaps not what you're looking for, as I believe the code is at least partially explained in the book, and so not truly hidden. ApLundell (talk) 15:51, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * A._N._Wilson is an interesting example. He was tricked into including in the first edition of his book, a forged letter including the acrostic "A N Wilson is a shit".. Later editions removed the letter and supposedly had an intentional secret message but it's never been spotted. ApLundell (talk) 16:03, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The Book of Cerne has an acrostic poem on folio 21r spelling out the name of Bishop Æthelwold of Lichfield.
 * Apparently, the original publication of Boris Pasternak's epic poem Lieutenant Schmidt contained an acrostic dedication to Marina Tsvetaeva because the author didn't wish to risk dedicating "his famous revolutionary poem to an émigré poet openly". That part was removed in later editions. (Simon Karlinsky, Marina Cvetaeva: Her Life and Art, University of California Press, 1966)
 * (Finally, James May's dismissal from Autocar came to mind too). ---Sluzzelin talk  16:19, 21 April 2017 (UTC))


 * Roger Bacon coded the recipe for black powder as a cryptogram. See .  -- Jayron 32 16:34, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Does Masquerade (book) fit the bill? One of the clue-illustrations included numbers; these turned out to refer to certain elements, which spelled out a word that led towards finding the golden hare. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 16:51, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Gödel, Escher, Bach Andy Dingley (talk) 18:10, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Vladimir Nabokov's short story "The Vane Sisters" has an acrostic in the final paragraph, as described in our article. Deor (talk) 21:04, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * In Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code, a code is hidden in the way the book is bound. not steganography, but more than just a code. -Arch dude (talk) 23:20, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * There's a venerable fringey industry surrounding the Shakespeare authorship question which identifies many purported secret messages in Shakespeare's works, identifying the works' real author as (take your pick) Francis Bacon, Christopher Marlowe, or a cast of thousands dozens of others. 173.228.123.121 (talk) 23:37, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * For a case of people seeing hidden messages where arguably none exist, some devout believers think the Hebrew Bible has numerous Bible codes. Dragons flight (talk) 05:55, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I once heard a writer say that in one of his novels he made each chapter have exactly the same (arbitrary) number of words, in the hope that someday a grad student would notice and form a mad theory about it. —Tamfang (talk) 23:47, 23 April 2017 (UTC)

Sources concerning Abraham Salamé
I would like to write an article about the interesting life of Abraham Salamé, a Syrian Christian, eye witness of the Bombardment of Algiers (1816) and of the massacre of Mamluks in 1811 by Muhammad Ali of Egypt. There is some short autobiography written in his book A narrative of the expedition to Algiers in the year 1816 (introduction) but am not able to find any contemporary source about him. --Lucius Castus (talk) 09:29, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Social class in the Far East vs Europe
I was reading peasant and noticed that Europeans (probably English-speaking Europeans) called the Chinese farmers "peasants", even though that's inaccurate. So, if they are not peasants, then what are they? In China before the Communist revolution, the society was based on the Confucian model. Scholar-bureaucrats were at the top and hired farmers to manage the farmland. Farmers were above artisans, and artisans were above merchants. Calling the scholar-bureaucrats "gentlemen" may be misleading, because even though they were like the European gentry who didn't do the actual farm work, their job was more like a local government official, and the local government official that performed religious ceremonies was a Christian cleric, which was at the top of the European model. So, were these Chinese "peasants" hired farmers, as opposed to the Western feudal system? It seems that European social class was based on feudalism and God. God was at the top. Then, there was the clergy. Then, there was the nobility. Finally, the common people (peasants) were at the bottom. Chinese social class seems to be based on Confucianism. The gods and goddesses and spirits of ancestors were respected but not formalized into a bureaucratic religion like Christianity was. The bureaucratic philosophy for long periods of time was Confucianism, so that would make the social class system inherently atheist, even though the people probably weren't atheist at all. Okay, now I'm really confused. Is "separation of church and state" a concept native to Europe because there was really a church that had government-like characteristics? Then, as Western culture spreads, these ideas like "separation of church and state" and "peasants" don't translate that well to other cultures? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 14:42, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Did you read Use of the term [peasant] for Chinese farmers? Further reading is at Agriculture in China. Blooteuth (talk) 14:56, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Yes. The "further reading" is a misdirect. That article doesn't say anything about the social history and societal structure of agriculture in China. 50.4.236.254 (talk) 15:39, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * (ec) I know nothing about the Chinese situation, but would just point out that the negative modern connotations of the English word "peasant" do not necessarily carry over to other European languages, e.g. in France today there are still people proud to be called paysans. Input from the Language Desk might add to this discussion. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 14:59, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The French/English difference between "peasant" and "paysan" is due to the etymological fallacy, merely because they share a root doesn't mean the modern terms are identical. There are other French words that have a closer meaning to peasant, including les habitants (especially in Canadian French) or les rustres (c.f. "rustic")  -- Jayron 32 15:33, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * True, but what I was trying to indicate is that other European languages may have positive words in common currency to describe people in this niche of society; none in English comes to mind. Carbon Caryatid (talk) 15:50, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The conversation reminds me of this. -- Jayron 32 16:02, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * (ec) China stopped being "feudal" in the strict sense a long time before western Europe, but western Europe also has not been "feudal" in that sense for a long time. If you are comparing the socio-economic structure of rural China in 1890 (say) to that in rural England, it was not all that different. Pre-revolution "peasants" referred to those people who worked in the agricultural sector but who did not own the land, but the way they actually worked differed. Broadly, pre-revolution, there were several types of farmers:


 * Some worked the land as employees of wealthier farm-owners. In modern English parlance they might be called "farm workers". However, depending on the way they became employees they might also be indentured, i.e. be employed on terms that restricted their freedom to change employers. These are probably closest to "peasants" in the Western sense.
 * Some leased the land from the land-owners as tenants, worked the land and shared the produce with the land-owner as rent. In modern English parlance they would probably be called "sharecroppers". One statistic estimates that during the Republic of China era about 30% of all farmers were sharecroppers. Farm workers and sharecroppers were the primary target market for the Communist revolution.
 * Some farmers owned the land they worked. They might work the land alone, or with hired seasonal or permanent hired help. Some farm-owners did not personally work the land at all, or had other occupations elsewhere and left management of the farm to managers.
 * The "land reform" that came with the Communist revolution aimed to suppress non-working farm-owners, and distribute land to sharecroppers and farm owners workers. All families, urban and rural, were classified into castes. A family's caste affected education and employment prospects of its members, and the branding stayed with it until reforms in the late 1970s. For rural families, the relevant castes were:


 * "Landlord": those who owned land but did not work the land at all. In many areas, the land they held beyond the per capita average in the village was confiscated; in some areas all their land was confiscated.
 * "Rich peasants": those who both worked the land and also either hired help or leased land to sharecroppers.
 * "Medium peasants": those who mainly worked the land themselves, but sometimes hired a small number of seasonal help, or even had to supplement their income by working for others.
 * "Poor peasants": those who mainly worked for others, either as farm workers or sharecroppers.
 * "Hired peasants": those who worked purely for others.
 * Poorer "medium peasants", "poor peasants" and "hired peasants" were classified as politically reliable. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:26, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I should also add, the classification of farmers into castes was direclty inspired by the Soviet Union: the Soviet kulaks, serednyaks, bednyaks and batraks roughly corresponded to rich, medium, poor, and hired peasants in China. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 15:43, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * And to address the other part of your question, the "scholar-official", "farmer", "artisan" and "merchant" four-stage stratification of society is a red herring in socio-economic terms, as it stems from Confucian moral philosophy. The scholar-official is deserving of the greatest respect morally, but that does not mean they always held the greatest socio-economic power. It does not map to the pre-revolution rural social structure outlined above: a non-resident farm-owner might be a scholar-official by occupation, but could equally be a merchant. Scholar-officials tend to come from rich, land-owning families, but not all scholar-officials owned real estate, and some members of scholar-official families would even choose to become merchants.
 * The "gentry" (紳, shen) in pre-modern Chinese society is a separate concept altogether. Being a member of the rural gentry depended on social status. It did not strictly depend on land ownership or occupation. Although typically the local gentry would be composed of scholar-official landowners and their extended family, wealthy merchants were also able to purchase government statuses that elevated them to the gentry. --PalaceGuard008 (Talk) 16:28, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I've always found it interesting that "Yeomen" were highly praised in traditional histories of England, while the more or less equivalent "Kulaks" were highly despised and persecuted in Stalin's Russia. AnonMoos (talk) 16:49, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Because a feudal society is not a communist society. The role of property owners is different in both economic systems.  Plus, Stalin was an asshole.  -- Jayron 32 16:52, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * But when did English farmers cease to be admirable yeomen? (Somewhat rhetorical question.) In seeking the poetic dagger that plunged to the heart of this shift, I found two versions. Our article on The London Gazette says this "classic ten-line poem compar[es] the stolid tenant farmer of 1722 to the lavishly spending faux-genteel farmers of 1822". It isn't hard to see why the former (yeomen) would be praised and the latter (kulak-like) despised.


 * Man to the plough;
 * Wife to the cow;
 * Girl to the yarn;
 * Boy to the barn;
 * And your rent will be netted.


 * Man tally-ho;
 * Miss piano;
 * Wife silk and satin;
 * Boy Greek and Latin;
 * And you'll all be Gazetted.


 * Carbon Caryatid (talk) 17:17, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Carbon_Caryatid -- the distinguishing characteristic of English yeoman is that they owned land and farmed it themselves, and earned a moderately prosperous living by it (i.e. definitely above mere subsistence, though of course far below an upper-class lifestyle). I think they might have been already starting to decline a little bit by 1722, and definitely by 1822, when in most areas there had come to be a kind of three-level polarization between large landowners, tenant farmers, and landless laborers... AnonMoos (talk) 01:16, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * There was the Yeomanry, a sort of rural home guard cavalry force started in the 1790s, which was only open to men wealthy enough to supply their own horse and uniform.
 * Otherwise, perhaps the term "country gentleman" or "landed gentleman" replaced "yeoman", rather like Mr Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, comfortably off but not really rich. The inclosure of arable land during the Agrarian Revolution tended to drive small farmers off the land and increase the holdings of the better off, resulting in the changes noted by User:AnonMoos above. Alansplodge (talk) 16:26, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * However, in their heyday, yeomen were not gentlemen -- they were independent of gentlemen (unlike tenants) and self-sufficient (unlike landless laborers), but did not really attempt a gentlemanly or gentry lifestyle. AnonMoos (talk) 22:17, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure that the original claim "It seems that European social class was based on feudalism and God. God was at the top. Then, there was the clergy. Then, there was the nobility. Finally, the common people (peasants) were at the bottom" is accurate. Firstly, because Feudalism is a fuzzy concept - its a term historians invented to describe how society was ordered in the middle ages, rather than a formal political system that people at the time acknowledged (and different historians have different definition of what "feudalism" means).  Secondly, because I don't think it accurately describes the hierarchy at least of England.  That was more like Monarch > major landowner > lesser noble > peasants.  Although to complicate things, although bishops and the like could be tenants-in-chief holding land from and loyalty to the King, some could (or just did) answer to the Church/Pope instead.  Exactly what role God supposedly played as the supreme overlord from whom everyone else drew legitimacy (and whether it was the King or the Church who was judge of that) and how important this was was something that would vary from time to timeIapetus (talk) 09:30, 25 April 2017 (UTC)

Medieval Sea Travel - Speed, Length, Time
How fast were medieval European ships (in general) ? How long distances could be travelled over the course of, say, 3 days, 7 days, 14 days and 21 days ?? Now, there would always be variables, of course. Some ships were faster than others, and wind and weather and whatnot would play a part, especially out on open waters... but in general, just to get a general idea.

For a few further examples, if we look at the European map, how long would it take to sail from southwestern Norway to Eastern Britain at the time, or from western Norway to Iceland? Vikings supposedly discovered North America as early as in the late 900s, long before their European neighbours to the south made their way to The New World. Does this mean that Vikings had better ships being able to take that long journey, or simply that they were more adventurous and eager to explore ?? I suppose they would have used Iceland and Greenland as middle-stations on their way to America, unlike Spain, Portugal, England and France etc. But how long would such a voyage take at the time, if they began their journey in Norway or England and made it all the way to Newfoundland (any stops made in Iceland/Greenland excluded)?

From what I have managed to find, there is supposedly slightly above 1000km / 560 Nautical miles from Norway to Britain. I'll assume that's between the two points nearest to each other. Some people, on forums, claim the journey could be made over just 56 hours under favourable conditions. Surely that is too generous, and it would take much longer than that ?

If such a journey could be completed (under favourable conditions) in so short a time, it completely turns upside-down certain things I imagined about the middle ages - such as trade... to think how frequently and quickly ships then could travel from one port to another, bringing goods to and fro.

Krikkert7 (talk) 19:00, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * We do have a Medieval ships article, although it doesn't really help answer most of your questions...the books in "further reading" section in that article would be a good place to start though. Adam Bishop (talk) 20:40, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * Plus, our "Types of sailing vessels and rigs" info box (or whatever it's called at the end of an article) gives nine European medieval vessels: Balinger, Birlinn, Cog, Hulk, Knarr, Koch, Kondura, Longship, Shitik. These might be good search terms. too.
 * But as a shortcut, look in Longship - it gives an average speed of 5–10 knots (9.3–18.5 km/h) and a maximum of 15 knots (28 km/h) and even has a source. Of course, not every voyage would include favourable winds for the entire passage so voyage times were probably highly variable. But this lets you start estimating anyway. 174.88.10.107 (talk) 21:12, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * I don't know about Medieval ships, but in the past I have worked with ICOADS data. I happen to know that from 1800 to 1875, the average speed of ships in their network was pretty steady at about 8 km/hr.  Today, it is about 20-22 km/hr.  Dragons flight (talk) 21:06, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

I don't know about how quickly they traveled, but the Maritime republics of Italy and Dalmatia depended on their fleets to support their extensive trade networks.: "thousands of Italians from the maritime republics poured into the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea, creating bases, ports and commercial establishments known as "colonies". "

And sometimes this naval trade backfired. See the article on the Black Death. In 1347, Genoese traders at the port city of Kaffa (Feodosia) in the Crimea fled an invasion by the Golden Horde. The armies of the Horde were already infected with the disease, and the disease spread to the traders. Within months, Genoese galleys spread the infection to Sicily, Genoa, Venice, Pisa, and Marseille. From there the infection spread across the continent, following the trade networks of the era. Dimadick (talk) 21:03, 21 April 2017 (UTC)


 * The Vikings who first discovered Greenland and then the New World didn't do so because they were deliberately exploring, but because they were blown beyond their intended destinations by storms. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 90.217.249.244 (talk) 22:43, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

Thanks very much for your answers. :) Krikkert7 (talk) 10:30, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * (edit conflict) Prevailing wind directions are important too. North of the polar front and south of the horse latitudes the wind is mostly from the east, but in the mid latitudes it's from the west. Sailers from Portugal, Spain or France had to travel north (into Viking country) or south (to the Canary Islands) before they would be able to cross the Atlantic, but the Vikings could be blown across by a storm right from their home ports.
 * There were differences in ship building. Viking ships had hulls able to withstand the waves of the North Atlantic, ships from mediterranean countries could just withstand the waves of the Mediterranean, which are tiny by comparison. The Viking ships however had very primitive sails, so they were practically unable to move in unfavourable winds.
 * If you want to compare speeds, keep in mind that the fastest ships were not always the ones used for trade. Longships were great as warships and for trade in shallow waters like lakes and rivers, but for trade at sea a knarr was more suited, sacrificing some speed for a smaller crew, more cargo volume and more safety.
 * I once read a book, A Viking Voyage by W. Hodding Carter, who used a replica knarr to travel from Greenland to Newfoundland. In a favourable, more than 20-knot wind they made 10 knots, even exceeding their hull speed. When they had to row, they made little more than half a knot. PiusImpavidus (talk) 10:35, 22 April 2017 (UTC)

Social class of immigrants
Where do immigrants fit in society? There are rich, highly educated/skilled immigrants, and there are poor, uneducated immigrants. And the highly skilled, rich immigrants may have humble childhoods in a relatively poor country and still have that poor/cheapskate/extremely frugal mindset. Immigrants from poor countries to rich countries may also be more religious than the native population. So, while the native population may be aging and becoming less religious, the new population of immigrants may be younger, hipper, and more religious. Do immigrants get their own special social class? 50.4.236.254 (talk) 23:16, 21 April 2017 (UTC)
 * Not as a group. A lot depends on what country the immigrant moves to and what country he/she came from. His/her social standing in their old country may also play a role in how they are perceived in the new country.  For example, a British Lord will probably be considered fairly upper class, no matter where in the world he moves.  A working class mechanic from the US, on the other hand, might be considered fairly middle class if he moves to a third world country. Blueboar (talk) 01:18, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * No. Matt Deres (talk) 01:02, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * You do realize that the world is a diverse place, with a variety of cultures and customs that are in no way identical, right? Your next to last line starts to give me the impression you might be talking certain western countries, but you haven't specified.  Instead, you spoke as if there is and was and ever shall be only one culture in this world, to which there is no deviation.  Ian.thomson (talk) 02:19, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The OP geolocates to central Ohio, which is farm country, but he seems to have lived a sheltered life in that regard. This is the same IP that asked why we have more than one variety of apples, for example. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 03:04, 22 April 2017 (UTC)
 * The often insidious effects of stereotyping might play a role in shoehorning immigrants into a perceptual cubbyhole within a larger society. Bus stop (talk) 03:13, 22 April 2017 (UTC)


 * There has been plenty of research on migration and social class. E.g.
 * Immigration and Social Class by Oksana Yakushko (2013).
 * "Social class and its reproduction in immigrants’ construction of self".
 * Carbon Caryatid (talk) 21:54, 22 April 2017 (UTC)