Medieval "Twitter"?

One of the funnier things to hear people whine about is my "lengthy" posts. But what is even funnier is the curious truth that this strange longing for shortness and conciseness is actually medieval. Or, to put it another way, the word "modern" is more than 700 years old.

The operative quote happens to be (from what I have read) a rather famous one. Here it is:

Gaudent brevitate moderni...

That is,

The moderns rejoice in brevity...

This comes from the text called Regule Roberti de Handlo, or "The Rules of Robertus de Handlo", a text on musical notation from about 1326. (I refer to the translation with commentary by Peter M. Lefferts.) With all the savings in text and time, I would think people would spend more time ornamenting their brevity, but alas this is not done. I'll consider becoming a twit when I see some illuminated posts, or perhaps one set to plainchant.

Meanwhile I'll rejoice in lengthiness. Hee hee!