--- title: ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Stirs Up the Document Market description: Swifties are buying old French documents for mood boards and more. But this trivializes the importance of the documents. canonical: https://time.com/6971832/the-tortured-poets-department-french-manuscripts/ author: TIME article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2024-04-30T14:56:53.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-08-04T07:42:55.308Z article:section: History og:title: ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Stirs Up the Document Market og:description: Swifties are buying old French documents for mood-boards and more. But this trivializes the importance of the documents. og:url: https://time.com/6971832/the-tortured-poets-department-french-manuscripts/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf6d017391feec69/698a5622096a946a896b0747/The-Bolter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 2629 og:image:height: 1479 og:image:alt: The Bolter og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Stirs Up the Document Market twitter:description: Swifties are buying old French documents for mood-boards and more. But this trivializes the importance of the documents. twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltaf6d017391feec69/698a5622096a946a896b0747/The-Bolter.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # ‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Has Stirred Up a Craze for Old French Documents > Sponsored content. 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Herbert / Made by History](https://time.com/author/made-by-history/) ## Julie Hardwick & Amanda E. Herbert / Made by History Apr 30, 2024 2:56 PM UTC  Courtesy Republic Records by [Julie Hardwick & Amanda E. Herbert / Made by History](https://time.com/author/made-by-history/) ## Julie Hardwick & Amanda E. Herbert / Made by History Apr 30, 2024 2:56 PM UTC When Taylor Swift shared the promotional images for her new album, _The Tortured Poets Department,_ which came out on April 19, the album’s styling was distinctly vintage: [monochrome photographs](https://www.instagram.com/p/C57BKuWO8CA/), [handwritten text](https://www.instagram.com/taylorswift/p/C28vsIzO%5FbL/?hl=en-gb&img%5Findex=2), songs dedicated to [historical figures](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcVUbmdQfaE), and a big payoff song called [“The Manuscript.”](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY6Qhlua8Zw) Swift fans have [long been aware of her interest in journaling and scrapbooking](https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/26/arts/music/taylor-swift-lover-journals.html), and this double album presents itself as a kind of intimate journal or memory book. It references personal struggle and hard times alongside professional triumph, while marking that phase as past. Swifties around the world rushed to[ celebrate the album](https://www.instagram.com/p/C3fzDGYx5CQ/), scouring the internet for images and objects that would allow them to [capture TTPD’s vibe and aesthetic](https://www.instagram.com/p/C5D8qhmL8ui/?img%5Findex=1). They didn’t have to look far. In the past five years, e-commerce sites like eBay and Etsy have been[ flooded with original 18th and 19th century French legal manuscripts](https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/1304608325/stunning-antique-1705-french-handwritten). These documents are hand-written in period French calligraphy on creamy linen rag paper. Each page was inscribed with a quill, using batch-made oak gall ink. [Some have original stamps that show that a paper tax had been paid.](https://www.etsy.com/listing/1233446079/set-of-4-antique-french-hand-written?ga%5Forder=most%5Frelevant&ga%5Fsearch%5Ftype=all&ga%5Fview%5Ftype=gallery&ga%5Fsearch%5Fquery=french+legal+papers&ref=sr%5Fgallery-1-3&sts=1&content%5Fsource=85de5ca3fd6dcb3b4f408732a23a045f9ab60054%25253A1233446079&organic%5Fsearch%5Fclick=1) Scrapbookers, DIY experts, journaling fans, and calligraphy enthusiasts love their aesthetics, and they snap up these hand-written pages, fashioning them into mood-boards, pasting them behind family photos, and seeing them as nostalgic evocations of bygone eras or emblematic of the Swift album vibe. These legal manuscripts are sold as crafting ephemera today, but for hundreds of years they were intended to be a lasting, permanent record, and served as an essential tool for ordinary people. They provide at best incongruous backdrops for family photos and vacation memories. Even the most mundane of these documents could — and often did — involve intense negotiation, conflict, and emotional drama. But more crucially, in imagining legal documents as disposable, we reveal our own tenuous understanding of the ways that rights and privileges have been used and defended in the past. **_Read More:_** [All the References in Taylor Swift's Title Track ‘The Tortured Poets Department’](https://time.com/6969008/the-tortured-poets-department-references-taylor-swift/) The vast majority of the manuscripts for bulk sale online are historic French notarial documents, created by public officials called “notaires,” or notaries, who have been part of the French legal landscape for hundreds of years. From the 16th century, notarial documents were a tool of the state, enabling the judicial and administrative system to function, and giving average Frenchmen and women the ability to manage both key life events and everyday interactions. People asked notaries to make records of “what happened,” often just in case a dispute arose in the future. The manuscripts offered written proof of legal contracts, enforceable for decades after they were written. The work of notaries became an extraordinarily routine and stable part of French life, and people of all ranks paid them to record many life transactions. If an artisan needed to borrow money for his business or his daughter’s dowry, he could ask a notary to connect him with a lender and record the transaction. Notaries helped parents of brides and grooms in negotiating marriage contracts that established the size of the dowry, when it would be paid, and how the woman would be supported if she was widowed. Landlords and tenants often recorded leases with a notary. A notary would write a will and might even draft it at the bedside of the dying person. But occasionally notarial manuscripts documented other, less routine things. An unmarried couple might reach a settlement about an untimely pregnancy and have a notary endorse their agreement about what to do with their child. A will that freed an enslaved person would be written and witnessed by a notary. Formerly enslaved spouses might ask a notary to record their desire to make each other their heirs, a strategic choice which allowed them to preserve their property and successfully navigate the complexities of living as a free Black person in the French state. The services provided by notaries offered ordinary people — including marginalized, vulnerable people, whose voices are so often lost, ignored, or elided in the historical record — a way to make valid legal claims. This expansive and crucial role remained consistent over centuries. Notaries and their clients took the records they produced seriously, and the manuscripts were supposed to be kept safe. The people who paid for their notarized documents took a copy home, where they could consult them again if needed. Notaries kept a version, too, and they were charged with keeping copies of every document they endorsed in their working lifetimes. At their death, a notary’s records were supposed to pass to the next officeholder, who would keep them safe and in good condition. In time, official notarial copies were deposited with archives all over France, where family members and researchers alike can still consult them. Notarial manuscripts are a valuable source of information, providing the basis for countless scholarly books and articles. They offer us a clearer understanding of the ways that regular, everyday people lived their lives. In recent years, however, these 18th and 19th century French notarial manuscripts have also shown up online. It is not always clear where or how the documents made their way onto the market. Selling notarial manuscripts, especially when the parties are long dead, might seem to offer little harm and a possible modest return. One online retailer said he was selling his father’s collection and didn’t know anything about it. Several professed to have bought them in flea markets, antique stores, boot sales, and second-hand shops in France. Others purchased them online. **_Read More:_** [Everything We Know About Taylor Swift’s New Album _The Tortured Poets Department_](https://time.com/6691954/taylor-swift-album-the-tortured-poets-department/) For many people, these are thrilling discoveries. One seller described the excitement of finding “a 19th century French ledger full of handwritten entries” at an antiques fair. Another enthused to her customers that some documents she had unearthed were, “written a 100 years before the Declaration of Independence in America.” These pitches find a receptive audience among scrapbookers and Swifties, with their love of history, storytelling, and memory. Whether they are making junk journals or social media posts, notarial documents offer a unique visual appeal. If anything, the inability to read their French text enhances the allure of the documents. In an interview, Kay Holder of KaysVintageEphemera praised their “romantic perhaps mysterious look,” while another Etsy shop owner described them on her page as “ABSOLUTELY beautiful” and “perfect for framing, scrapbooking, mixed media work as well as decoupage.” She “just LOVE\[s\] the old calligraphy and all the official ink stamps and seals.” Some crafters and scrapbookers do worry about the effect of tearing, ripping, and cutting old, historic manuscripts. Ulrika von Wowern, owner of the Etsy shop UlrikasMiniatyrer, wondered to us, “What happens when there are no historical documents left?” But, largely, crafters see themselves as preserving history, and an antidote to today’s fast paced world. In an interview, Elisabeth P. of ZabPaperLover told us she saw the documents as a remnant from a time when “we wanted things to be well made, neat and nice” in contrast to today when “nothing is handwritten.” Yet, the dichotomy between their modern use and their historical purpose can be jarring.  People in 18th and 19th century France made and kept these documents because they literally offered guarantees of legal protections in a precarious world—whether to document something as mundane as a small financial transaction or as monumental as granting someone freedom. But by reducing the documents to backdrops for family photos and vacation memories, we reveal our ignorance of and our widespread casualness about the past. These manuscripts might look pretty, but they document some of history’s many injustices toward vulnerable people. It’s a risk that Taylor Swift herself is attuned to. “Nostalgia is a mind trick,” she sings in “I Hate it Here,” a song musing about whether life in a different time (past or future) would have been better: “If I’d been there, I’d hate it.” _Julie Hardwick is the John E. Green Regents professor of history at the University of Texas at Austin._ _Her most recent book is_ Sex in an Old Regime City: Young Workers and Intimacy in France, 1660-1789 _(Oxford University Press, 2020)._ _Amanda E. Herbert is associate professor of early modern Americas at Durham University. Her most recent book,_ Spa Medicine and Body Politics in the British Atlantic World, _is under contract with the University of Pennsylvania Press._ _Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians._ [_Learn more about Made by History at TIME here_](https://time.com/6317798/introducing-made-by-history-for-time/)_. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors_. ## Transcript Taylor Swift song about Taylor Swift's most recent we decided to start a channel call me when you're about 5 months after the lover album came out and then the pandemic hitch and you just decided that you know, not only will wait needing something to say to fill out time with it. Also that people just we felt that people would not so understanding what we should have felt Taylor Swift was doing at the time and so we decided not moment that we wanted to be starting a YouTube channel so that we could just talk about the album's and should have shared why we think she's so incredible then a couple of months later. It just so happened that she surprised. Bike lure adding that was Alpha a big reaction to a brand new album is that was the video that really took off and I think so to put us on the the YouTube map stream. wildest dreams amazing When we put it all people really loved it, and I guess people want there. So just keep doing it. We had no idea that it would turn into what it has now. Like, we really just thought it would be a fun little side project prior to doing this full-time. I was actually working in banking. It wasn't something at the time that I was feeling super passionate about Taylor Swift is always be my number one. The definitely was no part of me. That's what that I could be making a job out of it patreon. He's the only way that we make money currently I doing this he took us less than a year to get to the point where a lot about subscribers on YouTube should have came over to the patreon platform with and wanted to support us in that way. I was able to quit my previous job and Bonnie was able to do to stop doing the the solar YouTube stuff that she was doing for fun up until that point. There's nothing better than being able to talk about Taylor Swift as a full-time jobs like I'm getting tired, even for a phoenix always rising from the ashes mending all her gashes. You might just have dealt the final blow. Sorry perfectly metaphorical for everything that she doesn't have a life Taylor Swift fans all such die-hard fans. And so I think it really makes them feel seen and understood when they're able to say to people who love Taylor Swift to the same level, but they do I can't express that excitement and joy of listening to her music. baby to sit up I think it's easy for people to feel like they can connect with us. And we feel the same by like reading the comments and all of them messages. Yeah over the years. A lot of people have told us that it feels like that just went on Facebook request friend and you know, a lot of them stay as well that they don't have a lot of people in their own lives. Love Taylor Swift's the way that they do so I think that can really mean a lot of people to feel like they've got like 2 online best friends who just get it at it's the same level that they do the community that we've managed to build from this YouTube channel has been just overwhelming like meeting people in real life and reading comments as well. Everyone is just so supportive and Give so much love and honestly, we always look at each other. We like I don't know what we did. Just get a negative comment. It just it's honestly a lot to say we try to just practice gratitude everyday cuz we like we can't believe how lucky we are to have such an awesome community. And I think it's just because they get so much joy from watching aljoy is this this is Joy Inception, I think in this day and age even though we're more connected than ever with the internet. I think a lot of people are also experiencing a lot of loneliness and isolation, especially after the pain. And so I think that being a pot of this community being a swiftie knowing that there's so many millions of people who were also a part of that community and who relate to her music in the way that we do it does really make you feel like you're not alone. She just is really great at making you feel connected and understanding are no martians and you are an experience in life in the same way. That some of our subscribers feel about us we feel about Taylor that she's able to so perfectly articulate the way that we feel that we feel like she's another one of our best friends when she's when we listen to Hillsong and she's asleep like the world's biggest Super-Sod the same time extremely fortunate to be able to go to five of the seven shows that he had tickets to the first two nights in Melbourne and the very last night. We were sitting around all day on the couch. It was quarter past 6 p.m. And we got a GM from Taylor nation, which is Taylor staying in and actually you were the one that are open today. This is why I like to invite you guys back for tonight show we can make it. Please let it snow. we rushed to the stadium through on an outfit and when we got there we were greeted by Taylor's dad's Scott and he delivered us a handwritten letters b a love True Lies Holiday Valley No. just coffee hand written letter Emily hot Sending my love Kayla to know that she loves out reaction videos and does feel supported by them. It just means the world to me. It makes us feel like we're doing something right. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/6971832/the-tortured-poets-department-french-manuscripts/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/6971832/the-tortured-poets-department-french-manuscripts/"},"headline":"‘The Tortured Poets Department’ Has Stirred Up a Craze for Old French Documents","datePublished":"2024-04-30T14:56:53.000Z","dateModified":"2026-08-04T07:42:55.308Z","description":"Swifties are buying old French documents for mood-boards and more. 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