Medieval Manuscript Found to Contain World's First One-Star Yelp Review of an Alchemist

Researchers at the Bodleian Library have identified what they believe to be history's first consumer complaint against an alchemist — a scathing 13th-century review penned by a disgruntled nobleman that reads remarkably like a modern one-star Yelp entry. The document, discovered in the margins of an otherwise unremarkable treatise on elemental theory, was authored by one Lord Roderick of Shropshire, who apparently hired a traveling alchemist named Fulcanelli the Lesser to transmute his modest copper holdings into gold. 'I engaged this practitioner upon his solemn oath that he possessed knowledge of the Philosopher's Stone,' the margin text reads in cramped Latin. 'After three months of loud explosions, one house fire, and the permanent discoloration of my finest tapestry, he produced naught but a foul-smelling powder and an invoice of breathtaking audacity.' The review continues: 'Would that I could award fewer than one star. His knowledge of correspondences is laughable, his mercury is watered, and his so-called athanor is clearly a repurposed bread oven. Would not recommend.' Scholars note that the complaint mirrors contemporary consumer behavior with striking precision. 'He even threatens to tell his friends,' said medievalist Dr. Clara Albion. 'There's a line about how the other lords of Shropshire shall hear of this. It's basically medieval word-of-mouth marketing in reverse.'