George Saintsbury includes on the use of the word “dull” that “its use, indeed, is characteristic of that odd concentration on self which distinguishes our day. Anything that does not at once provide the indispensable and sacred ‘good time’ deserves contemptuous condemnation and gets it” (2). I found this sentiment rang true, especially thinking about archives and how we view objects in that space, taking more account of items and documents because they are in the archive, and trying to draw information or any kind of response to the materials, even if they would appear dull at first to another. Perhaps that is one of the points when context is important. 

Saintsbury says regarding the Paston Letters “as pure literature the documents do not rank high; as pure history they were marginal, auxiliary, appendicial rather than of capital importance and interest” (3). I came across a website about the Paston Letters, accompanied by a lot more contextual information around the letters, such as the life as a scribe in medieval times, and the Paston families and who they were over a few centuries. The makers and researchers for this website aggregated a lot of  information that could help people see that these letters hold significant historical value, and they should be considered beyond face value. I am assuming they spent a lot of time in the archives of the Paston Letters, and over time came to understand a lot more about life in the medieval era of this region. Archives can bring new knowledge to us in this way, in a format that is understandable to many, but it requires a lot of close and finite work to see what the materials can tell us in the first place. This reading makes me think about the process of digitizing archival materials and what that can mean for those without access to the archives in a physical sense.