skopia
Gregory, bishop of Tours, is the reason sixth-century Gaul is visible at all. He records Clovis splitting a soldier's skull over a looted vase, queens ordering assassinations, and miracles at the saints' tombs.
Ibn Battuta left Morocco at twenty-one for the hajj and stayed away twenty-nine years, judging cases in Delhi and crossing the Sahara to Mali. He dictated all 75,000 miles from memory.
Late medieval France and the Netherlands ran on public weeping, elaborate tournaments, and constant awareness of death. Huizinga paints this as no Renaissance dawn but a culture worn out by its own forms.