Essays

From the Pays Illinois to the Gas Station: How Charlemagne Explains American Portions

A British man appeared recently on the internet, armed only with honesty and a sense of proportion. “America has got pew-pews, space and lots of confidence. In the UK, we’ve just got Greggs and rain. There’s no match, honestly. We are like America’s tiny, tiny little baby brother and sister.” The video — which you…
The Capitulare de Villis and the Lost Science of Constitutional Plant Medicine

In the year 812, the Emperor Charlemagne issued a decree. It covered the administration of royal estates across the Frankish empire — their grain yields, their livestock, their accounting practices. Buried in the middle of this administrative document, in a section that most medieval historians have treated as a footnote, is a list of plants…