Ancient and ArchaeologyΜύ permalink
Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
This discussion has been closed.
-
Message 1.Μύ
Posted by ArweRheged (U14720560) on Thursday, 12th May 2011
On the Atlantis thread, we were slipping towards a discussion on the oral tradition and the reasons why Nennius, Gildas et al set quill to parchment when they could have been enjoying more productive hobbies such as wearing enormous square headed brooches or slaughtering Picts.
I'd argue that of all the writers, only Bede is seriously attempting to write a historical account. Like us, he was also hampered by a distinct lack of knowledge about what was really going on in the 5th and 6th centuries. His account of the Roman period is pretty good (and streets ahead of Gildas and Nennius), but get to the early 5th and it all goes a bit hazy. But his account is broadly reliable, except where he is just reheating Gildas. He cracks the odd joke and is not prone to undue hyperbole.
Gildas, by contrast, is writing a foaming sermon. His knowledge of events before his own birth is pretty dire, but I suspect that that is not the point. He is deliberately using the Penny Dreadful tactic of "simplify then exaggerate" as a means of berating a handful of British kings whom he perceives to be presiding over the collapse of good order. However, he gives so much lurid detail about the five he berates that we could perhaps venture to suggest that much of what he says about them is true (if exaggerated). If this is true, then perhaps these five alone of the great men of that period stand out as real people. We can learn much of the relationship between church and state and the nature of petty kingship.
Nennius by his own admission is dumping a largely unedited heap of legend, genealogy, history and things some bloke heard down the pub on us. He has attempted to put it into chronoligical order, but no more. The oral tradition shine strough (the Tale of Emrys, for example).
The Chroniclers (Welsh and English) and the genealogists are perhaps trying to define and legitimise their patrons and their place in the island.
The poets are sucking up to their warlord masters and the hagiographers are sucking up to their spiritual masters. They too are prone to exaggeration and undoubtedly the tales grow in the telling. But at heart, there may be a hint of real people and real deeds. For fans of the Old North (guilty) the poems are the single best source of information, but are also the most prone to corruption.
Archaeology and etymology can help anchor events and find the grains of truth - as can groovy modern techniques such as DNA testing or the mapping of linguistic variation. But without these tools, do we not have to treat our written sources of this period with the greatest of caution?
Regards,
A RLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 2
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 13th May 2011
do we not have to treat our written sources of this period with the greatest of caution?
Μύ
Yes, we do.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 3
Posted by Daniel-K (U2684833) on Friday, 13th May 2011
Nennius by his own admission is dumping a largely unedited heap of legend, genealogy, history and things some bloke heard down the pub on us. He has attempted to put it into chronoligical order, but no more. The oral tradition shine strough (the Tale of Emrys, for example).
Μύ
The Nennian Prologue - wherein Nennius identifies himself as the author and claims to be simply repeating what he has found undigested - is absent from many copies of the Historia and belongs to a particular scriptoral tradition. In other words, it seems to have been invented by a copier to attribute an anonymous text to probably the only writer of about the right time that he had heard of (in another tradition the Historia is attributed to Gildas!) and to explain the style of a work the overarching scheme of which was no longer understood. David Dumville, the leading contemporary authority on the Historia, holds that the author has carefully worked over his material to fit his framework, although we will have to wait for Dumville's long-delayed edition of the Historia for a full account of how he has done so. But certainly the Nennian Prologue should not be taken at face value.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 4
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Friday, 13th May 2011
I think that "oral tradition" and "Dark Ages" speaks volumes..
I just looked again at the 1999 volume of tales from the British Isles that I have read the first 100 or so pages of.. and it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the creation, embellishment and handing down over the centuries of such tales owes much to what "telling tales" is most often concerned with. That is either:
(a) selective use of material to achieve a specific goal- usually based upon a distortion of the truth, or
(b) the need to occupy the mind -individual and collective- during long periods when the whole being can not be active, especially those long winters when the arrival of a great teller of stories was a boon, and bards were welcome in the halls of chiefs and Kings away from the dead of winter.
In many cases this situation may not have been very different from the Victorian "Dame Schools" when women with little or no education were employed to look after young children while their mothers were at work, and no doubt told them "all about" fabulous places like Greece, Rome and Egypt- creating "wonderlands" to divert entertain and inspire the imagination of the young, as Oxford Dons were later to do when "moonlighting".
Has anyone read Dicken's History of England for children?
Back in Victorian times the London Bar was one of the Professions that held out against the use of written examinations as an entry requirement. It argued that a good barrister is someone who can convince a jury. Surely the same thing applied to storytellers and the best stories. They were not there to tell a factual truth, but to bring life in the darkness to places that others could not reach.
All of which may earn me at best another "c'est magnifique. Mais ce n'est pas de l'histoire" comment.
Cass
PS..Going back to the OP, I was interested to discover not so long ago that Rosemary Sutcliffe- who has mined the Dark Ages for settings for her own storytelling- has spent most of her life confined to a wheel chair. So in her case the attraction of such an age- apart from the blank canvas- was this idea that it must have been a very physical age- the total opposite of her own life experience.. And, like the Dark Age audiences trapped in the cold and dark, her imagination could run out into infinity.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 5
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Friday, 13th May 2011
I think we need to return to a couple of points. The first is; histories in the past were not objective accounts but written from a particular standpoint and to promulgate a particular ideology. Some might say nothing changes. So is it possible to surmise what these might be? For a start, these are all clerics and so their writings might be viewed as allegorical or like parables intended to highlight the part played by individuals or kingdoms/states/ethnic groups in the working out of god's plans. Naturally these would tend to be favourable to their patron whoever or whatever that was and also would reflect their desire to be treated favourably in this world and in the next, the day of judgement weighing heavily on their minds. Oral history and myths are not neutral accounts, they are, with a small p, political and encapsulate values and identities so those recorded by these writers were selected for a purpose.
The second is; who were they written for, who was the intended audience? Certainly not the serf in the field so who was literate then or might wish to have them read to them? I can't accept they were created to lie forgotten in a library or simply show how scholarly their composers were. These documents were copied and circulated and the very fact that we know of them shows how importantly they were viewed, why?
Sorry to just pose a list of random thoughts and associated questions but I feel that it's only in taking this kind of approach that we'll get anywhere, at least until someone proves that seances really work.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 6
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Friday, 13th May 2011
Hi ferval
Good points.
I think you are correct in thinking that most of these texts have been copied, distributed and kept for a political purpose.
Equally we have to accept that some texts were not copied or were destroyed deliberately because they did not suit the political situation either at the time or indeed as a later history for example to substantiate a lineage.
The other point that you raise is the one of βaudienceβ.
Who were these texts meant for? Well it would have to have been the educated either ecclesiastical or secular which means that it was meant for the ruling classes.
This is a point that has been raised regarding Gildas and the people who he is writing to.
He is writing to and about Kings who you would think would not be worried about his sermon but he obviously feels that he is having an impact β or why bother?
Obviously if this is going to be distributed to all of these Kings he would need a lot of people copying these texts which would have taken some time.
But do we really know if this is his prime audience at all or a set of reasons why these people should be deposed? Are his writings aimed at justifying the destruction of these kings?
This type of conundrum applies with any written work but there is a certain comfort for those of us who are trying to glean some historic content, in that in order for the writer to be taken seriously, the content referring to the recent history must be reasonably accurate.
Of course where you are talking of 200 or 300 years after the event the lines of reality must become further blurred and the events of the latter days will colour the interpretation of any writings referred to in the past as ours often does.
Perhaps some of the worst errors that are made are in the interpretations of texts that people make to fit their own theories.
Often things are invented or inferred even with events that there is good archaeology evidence for to link to the writings.
Just as one example everyone supposes that London was burnt by Boudica purely because Tacitus tells us so (backed up by a much later version of the events by Dio). We know that there was a fire and use this to state that the Brythons caused this fire and destruction.
I am not suggesting that this is incorrect but equally well Seutonius Paulinus could have taken the grain and the civilians and set fire to the Warehouses to deny Boudica access to supplies that were in London.
Probably she would not have been pleased and a bit miffed and finished the job but again there is no definitive proof of attrocities on the scale mentioned apart from some singed skulls in a stream at Walbrook and some skilfull writing by some Romans.
Kind Regards - TALink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 7
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Friday, 13th May 2011
Hi TA
Regarding the Boudican account, this is where the historian is obliged to employ the "qui bono" principle to their assessment of the philological evidences still surviving. Archaeology emphatically supports a major destruction by fire at the stipulated time, leaving the question of whether it is being correctly reported by Tacitus or not, his account being the apparent source for subsequent ones concerning the incident.
All three characters you name, Suetonius Paulinus, Boudica and Tacitus must be examined in that light and, as you suggest, the first two can be attributed some motive for causing the fire, and in Tacitus's case a motive for promoting belief in the fire being started by Boudica even if she didn't. However the quality of the extraneous evidences which are then brought to bear in comparing these three contradictory theories is by no means uniform. In Tacitus and Paulinus's cases they tend towards speculation. In Boudica's case they tend towards the concrete. That is why Boudica - who of all three actually has the slightest claim to historicity as a person - still retains the strongest likelihood to have performed the feats attributed to her, at least according to the standards employed in most of the relevant historiographical approaches to deducing such matters.
When certainty is unattainable then probability is what must be calculated when assessing the historical record. In Boudica's destruction of London the bulk of such probability still lies with the likely veracity of the accepted version.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 8
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Friday, 13th May 2011
Hi Nordmann
I have to agree with your argument but perhaps the operative word is "tends" as the accepted version is not necessarily the correct one but has a higher probability of fitting the standard interpretation.
I would of course be interested in your reasoning as to why Boudica was the most concrete candidate for the destruction of London (but perhaps that is for another thread)
That however was not the point that I was trying to make. It was more the reliance on text only and its political use both at the time and perhaps later.
I think TP's approach of needing both the written word and the archeology is valid to gain a reasonable understanding of what was happening at any given time.
Has Sub Roman Britain been edited out deliberately.
Surely Gildas is not the only person who was writing at this time, so as ferval said why is it only his writings that have come down to us?
Kind Regards - TALink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 9
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 14th May 2011
Hi TA
The unavoidable, the most honest and sadly the most disappointing answer to what actually happened in sub-Roman Britain is that we just don't know, at least in sufficient detail to eliminate .
Regarding "concrete" in the sense it is employed historically with regard to those "dark" periods in our past, be it Boudica and the Iceni or the aftermath of Roman military withdrawal, I think it is fair to say that it most often indicates "concrete assumption" and not concrete fact. However that is still streets ahead of unsubstantiated or weakly supported speculation in terms of formulating historical theory and as long as Tacitus's account of Boudica's revolt, for example, remains uncontradicted by archaeological or other subsequent evidence it still remains our best bet, any radical departure from this account requiring therefore to be based on just that subsequent evidence in a cogent and reasonably transparent manner. This last bit seems to be the one most often disregarded by popular revisionist history, which is probably a factor in what makes it popular but alas also what dooms it often to a short (if lucrative) shelf life in the bookshops.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 10
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Saturday, 14th May 2011
The unavoidable, the most honest and sadly the most disappointing answer to what actually happened in sub-Roman Britain is that we just don't know, at least in sufficient detail to eliminate .
Μύ
Sorry - should have read;
The unavoidable, the most honest and sadly the most disappointing answer to what actually happened in sub-Roman Britain is that we just don't know, at least in sufficient detail to eliminate idle conjecture being often presented as worthy of equal consideration to more considered theory.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 11
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Sunday, 15th May 2011
Hi Nordmann
Surely because a revisionist opinion is newer than an established view does not necessarily mean that it is less considered than the original view, whether it is more worthy is a subjective observation.
I think that a certain amount of idle conjecture is certainly interesting, if not a bit of fun but possibly can make people think a bit laterally which could spark new views, new ideas and perhaps a clearer view of the histories.
Perhaps it is this that helps keep history fresh which is important, whether this is populist or not is surely irrelevant. Of course being intentionally populist to make some money at the expense of the truth is unforgiveable.
Your point βhowever any radical departure from this account requiring therefore to be based on just that subsequent evidence in a cogent and reasonably transparent mannerβ is perfectly fair, yet the application of a different logic on the original (or near original) text to create a different viewpoint if it fits the text and the archaeology must be fair.
Obviously subsequent evidence in a timeline must also be taken into consideration but again if this fits which view is the more accurate?
Kind Regards β TALink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 12
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Sunday, 15th May 2011
Gildas always reminds me of Rev. Dr. Paisley: lots of passion, beautifully expressed, not necessarily accurate but splendidly partisan.
On the other hand Bede reminds me of the Archbishop of Canterbury, often wrong but a very fine and decent chap. This description applies to all Archbishops of Canterbury.
Lastly Nennius reminds me of an archivist who has lost control of his materials.
The risk with Dark Age history is that there is none, but many theories. So perhaps the argument has to be about historiography rather than actual events. The need for the historian to work hand in glove with the archaeologist is paramount and vice-versa.
The data which is available is very localised so should not be used in broad brush analyses applied all over the place. The need to dump all previously acquired luggage is also essential.
Fascinating subject though.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 13
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Monday, 16th May 2011
Surely because a revisionist opinion is newer than an established view does not necessarily mean that it is less considered than the original view, whether it is more worthy is a subjective observation.
Μύ
Hi TA
I fully agree and in fact I am firmly in the camp of those who wholeheartedly welcome such revisions of historical assumption based on a considered review of extant data. However I am also aware that such revision is quite rare, whereas that based on speculation which itself maintains a tenuous, over selective or sometimes even on-existent link with such data is alas all too common.
The argument concerning "keeping history fresh" which you tenatively posit is one however to which I cannot subscribe, at least as an excuse for tolerating revision for revision's sake. It smacks of the argument also often put forward when defending the "dumbing down" of TV history programmes on the basis that their lack of honesty, integrity or even basic academic worth (often admitted by their authors) is outweighed in importance by their ability to enthuse their audience into researching history for themselves. The cliched target for this enthusing is most often cited as "young people", as if for some reason such newcomers to historical study are more likely to be encouraged by immaturely presented and simplistic non-theory than by catering for their appetite to absorb factual data in a discerning and critical manner.
I would challenge anyone who puts forward this theory to back it up with proof that this is in fact a discernible effect in any case. In my opinion "bad" history presented in such a manner can indeed enthuse its audience, but primarily into engaging in even more "bad" historical "research". While historical research - be it as an academic discipline or as a recreational intellectual pursuit - can only benefit from diversity in its practitioners' approach, it can only suffer when a surfeit of these approaches and the claims made on such bases simply serve to obfuscate rather than clarify, and subsequently entail a huge amount of wasted time and resources in simply demonstrating their lack of worth.
Stanilic is correct in saying that this is an historiographical rather than an historical argument, and I apologise if it represents a deviation therefore from the specific historical theme to which his thread refers.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 14
Posted by TheodericAur (U14260004) on Monday, 16th May 2011
Hi Nordmann
I couldn't agree more.
I did not express myself well if by "keeping history fresh" I somehow implied revision for revision's sake.
I am not from the school that "dumbing down" is good. I find it particularly condescending when this is done often with loss of detail and clarity and context.
I would hate however to see a monotonous repitition of "facts and scenarios" represented time after time without the application of new findings, new understandings and new views (that fit the archeology and text).
Kind Regards - TALink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 15
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 16th May 2011
Surely one of the problems of the dumbing down of history is that it supports and somehow condones simplistic ideas about the Present..that get projected back and fitted in with evidence through cherry-picking.
My 38 year old son yesterday got a bit "shirty" with me when I sniffed at his explanation that the USA have got some incredible installation in the Artic that is capable of bouncing sonic waves off the ionasphere and targetting places where they want to create Earthquakes.. He seems to have become quite susceptible to these mastermind conspiracy theories that are all the rage..
He did not take kindly to my somewhat acerbic statement that really there was very little evidence in History of the kind of super human intelligence at work- either human or divine (in the light of the recent Dirigble posts)..
Of course there would be nothing much new about people getting money from the US Government to fund schemes of varying degrees of outlandishness.
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 16
Posted by ArweRheged (U14720560) on Tuesday, 17th May 2011
I suspect a big part of the "bad history" movement is the desire to prove a pre-existing conclusion, rather than assessing the evidence as impartially as possible and then formulating a conclusion.
The post-Roman period is particularly prone to this sort of abuse, as so little is known for sure that pretty much any numpty can come up with their Grand Theory and find something to support it. You want to find King Arthur in Milton Keynes? No problem. You want to write a dewy eyed account of mystic Celtic one-ness with the horns of Elfland loudly thundering? No problem. You want to see the Saxons eco-friendly organic smallholders living in neo-anarchist road protest camps? No problem. You want the early lineage of Wessex to mirror and predict the rise and fall of interminable nursery rhyme purveyors, the Beatles? No problem.
A second problem (which appears to be a particular issue for TV history) is the desire to find a Big Story that underpins the whole thing - usually linked to a single person. It often necessary to simplify and exaggerate whatever evidence exists in order to give the story sufficient whoosh.
Perhaps we shouldn't be too hard on the TV shows - after all, they are telling an entertaining story rather than giving an academic history lesson. However, I agree with Nordmann's concerns about the consequences of this approach.
Ultimately, it is about understanding the evidence as well as using it. Understanding why something is written can be as important as understanding what it says.
Regards,
A RLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 17
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 18th May 2011
Understanding why something is written can be as important as understanding what it says.
Μύ
Hi AR
David Hume, one of Britain's intellectual giants whose praises are so suspiciously unsung, maintained that historical deduction could be divided into two areas of differing value in terms of an actual and thorough comprehension of the past, however distant or recent that past might be.
Deduction arrived at through a restrospective analysis of the consequent effects of an action had to be, by definition, vastly inferior to that which could be arrived at through understanding and analysing the contemporary motives for that action. In other words to properly understand the action it had to be placed as firmly as possible in its contemporary context. If therefore for any reason the contemporary context could not itself be ascertained then it was foolish to aver that the action - however well recorded it might be historically in its own right - was properly understood today. By the same token if the contemporary context was well understood then the slightest of physical evidence could be used to establish the historicity of actions, and by extension their perpetrators.
His own preferred example to illustrate what he meant was Socrates, a figure who we only know through Plato's writings. However the historical context of both Plato's writings and Socrates's life is one which we can reasonably adduce from these and other evidences, lending Socrates historicity. He was one of the first historians to actually question the historicity of Jesus, using the same logical approach to the examination of context.
Your observation about the motive behind why a thing is written is therefore in keeping with Hume's maxim. In fact he would probably have gone further and claimed that the motive, in this case, actually exceeds the content in importance, especially if it encourages people to avoid thinking of Nennius, Bede et al as "historians" first and foremost. It is however amazing the frequency with which one finds their material being presented for simplistic acceptance on that basis, even in works by authors of whom one would have expected better.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 18
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 18th May 2011
Nordmann
I remember learning to apply this principle to the Cold War rhetoric when it was important to note whether- for example- a Communist leader's speech was addressed at a Domestic or a Foreign audience. In both the USSR and its satellites and in China the need to portray the Capitalist West as a vicious and treacherous enemy was vital for the interior dynamics of these states could only be sustained on a "war economy/society" basis.
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 19
Posted by stanilic (U2347429) on Sunday, 22nd May 2011
ArweRheged
Beautifully expressed and well said.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 20
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Friday, 27th May 2011
Hi Nordmann
'do we not have to treat our written sources of this period with the greatest of caution?'
"Yes, we do."
For once you and I are in agreement.
However, your statement
"His own preferred example to illustrate what he meant was Socrates, a figure who we only know through Plato's writings."
The writings of Socrates student Xenophon and the plays of his contemporary Aristophanes also refer to Socrates. However, Aristophanes portrays Socrates as somewhat of a buffoon.
regards
TimLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 21
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Friday, 27th May 2011
Yes, look at the motives of the writers of the source materials, but I think more attention should be paid to the motives of the modern historians; for post-Roman Britain, I percieve several questionable motives including - a desire to make a name for themselves by coming up with some radical theory, with very little evidence; a tendency to be influenced by our situation in post-war Europe, thus viewing invasion as economic migration, for example; an anti-religious (particularly anti-Christian) stance that seeks to rubbish church writers; the liberal anti-imperialism which results in denigration of Roman civilisation.
Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 22
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
Hi fascinating
You are absolutely right about this. A good example being the way in which historians approached the Anglo-Saxons was profoundly influenced by the two world wars.
Between the 16th -19th century historians (rather improbably) saw in the Anglo-Saxon witan the origin of Parliament and the common law. They stressed the ethnic uniformity of the 'Anglo-Saxon' peoples and even saw in their religious affiliations the roots of the Church of England.
In the mid-20th century the experiences of wartime, for quite understandable reasons, resulted in the Anglo-Saxons being perceived as the deadly enemies of the Romano-British. In 1940 an embattled insular people contending with continental Germanic enemies was a very plausible idea indeed. Did our survival at that time under a great war-leader influence post-War historical re-appraisal of the myth of King Arthur?
Today our experience of modern emigration and even a EU inspired wish to stress cultural similarities rather than differences, together with vastly greater archaeological knowledge, has resulted in another paradigm shift. Clearly the agendas of historians has been an issue from the earliest times; after all Gildas and Bede do take rather different views on the subject of Saxons!
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 23
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
Hi TP,
To pick up on your points, it seems to me that the persona of Arthur has been consistently wielded by the various authors as a standard bearer in their opposition to whatever threat they have perceived at the time and to reinforce their own political or religious belief system. Even the βhistoriesβ are probably largely allegorical rather than factual. In the case of the medieval romances that threat might be the forces of what they saw as uncivilised behaviour and barbarism and opposition to the current Christian ideology and acceptable codes of living of the elite. In that case could it be the shortcomings of those whom Arthur and his knights encountered as well as the consequences of their own failings that mattered rather than the ethnicity of those characters?
A quick thought on the βwas no Arthurβ quote from Y Gododdin, I might say that someone was strong but βno Samsonβ. Could that suggest that that quote was also using a common expression to denote a great warrior rather than referring to a defined historical character?Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 24
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
Hi ferval
All that sounds totally reasonable to me. Certainly phrases like 'the strength of Sampson' or 'the labours of Hercules' can be on the lips of those who know nothing whatever about the figures concerned.
Is it not true that Greek dramatists also retold fragments of a historical myth, like the Trojan War, that would be familiar to their audiences? Their intentions were not to pass on factual information but to use these incidents to explore great subjects like revenge, the consequences of betrayal, or the relationship of humankind and the gods.
I love the Arthurian myths myself although I regret the enormous amount of time so many people have invested in attempts to establish the 'true historical Arthur', attempts which I believe are certain to fail. I am also puzzled that a completely historical Christian king who struggled heroically against pagan invaders, Alfred, is not made into the stuff of legend. Perhaps the Norman tale-tellers were aware that his victories were won against their ancestors and they were keen to promote the idea that the outcome of Hastings was final.
If I have a personal ambition it is to promote general interest in the pre-Roman Iron Age and post-Imperial periods in southern Britain, interest that is not fixated on personalities. Much as I admire Roman material culture I'm not sure the innovations of the Romans were of great consequence. In Scotland, of course, you don't have to devote so much time to them and can run both my periods into a magnificently 'long' Iron Age.
Best wishes,
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 25
Posted by Daniel-K (U2684833) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
A quick thought on the βwas no Arthurβ quote from Y Gododdin, I might say that someone was strong but βno Samsonβ. Could that suggest that that quote was also using a common expression to denote a great warrior rather than referring to a defined historical character?
Μύ
I don't think Y Gododdin can be using the name Arthur simply as a poetic way of saying "famous warrior".
The lines in question are supposed to be celebrating Guaurddur's achievement in felling so many of the enemy. If "though he was no Arthur" means "he was good BUT he was no Arthur" as you might say "he is strong but he is no Samson" that would seem to subtract from his achievements. So it seems more likely that "though he was no Arthur" must add to his achievements in some way, ie that it must be read as "he was good AND he was no Arthur".
Thus the name Arthur must have conjured up some image in the mind of the poems first audience precisely besides that of the great warrior which the poet wanted to contrast with the image of Guaurddur to magnify what he had done. "Though he was no Arthur" must allude to more than a common expression; it must allude to a more multifaceted (and therefore historical?) character.
One explanation might be that Guaurrdur was physically disadvantaged (in the later 'Culhwch and Olwen' he is identified as a hunchback) while Arthur was remembered as a giant of a man (or, if Arthur is entirely mythical, actually as a giant) and so the poet is magnifying Guaurddur's achievements by contrasting his lack of natural physical advantages with Arthur's excess of the same.
Another explanation would be that the poet is making an ironic comment on the fame of Arthur, saying that Guaurddur's achievements were equivalent to Arthur's but that he did not by them win the same universal fame as Arthur did. So "He brought down black crows to feed before the wall/Of the city, though he was no Arthur" would mean "he killed as many as Arthur [the crow is a carrion bird so bringing down crows means killing men] and deserves the same fame though he does not have it"
Perhaps it is a reflection on Arthur's civil wars, contrasting Guaurddur who feeds the crows only on the enemy with an Arthur who fed the crows with his erstwhile comrades and even his own family (one of the earliest stories of Arthur that survives, recorded in the Wonders of Britain attached to the Historia, reports him killing his son).
I prefer (as I mentioned on the other thread) the interpretation that says it is an elaborate joke: the poet is comparing the feast Guaurddur gives the crows with the feasts which Arthur, famous as the "giver of feasts" for his liberality, gave to his men, even though Guaurddur had only his sword to provide the feast while Arthur had all the advantages of leadership and triumph to furnish his table. "Though he was no Arthur" is therefore used In the same way that you might jokingly say of a strongman who was defiantly bald that he is "strong, though no Samson" meaning he doesn't have Samson's famous locks but does have his strength.
Whichever interpretation is correct (and the four above hardly exhausts the possiblities) I think we can say that the poet must be playing with some other image of Arthur that the name created in the mind of his first hearers besides that of the great warrior, that Arthur was known for more than that.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 26
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Saturday, 28th May 2011
You are absolutely right about this. A good example being the way in which historians approached the Anglo-Saxons was profoundly influenced by the two world wars.
Μύ
But the way the Anglo-Saxons were viewed was, if I am not wrong, much the same through the early 20th century as it had been in the Victorian period, which, for Britain itself, had been mostly peaceful.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 27
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 29th May 2011
Hi fascinating
The type of thing I had in mind was RG Collingwood's 'Roman Britain and the English Settlements' published in 1936. The nineteenth chapter - Britain in the 5th century - is very impressive. Collingwood addresses most of the questions that exercise us here and does his best to integrate historical sources with the archaeological information then known. In this process he virtually creates 'the search for the historical Arthur' single handed. So how does Collingwood refer to the English?
'He (Vortigern), to their horror, encouraged their worst enemies to come and settle in their land.'
'Wars, and fierce ones, between the sub-Roman Britons and the gradually encroaching Saxons.'
The Wansdyke: 'can be nothing but the work of some British chief organizing the defence of the south-west against invaders, probably West Saxons.'
'the forces of civilisation were giving way to barbarism.'
Now my point is not that Collingwood was necessarily wrong, although it won't surprise you if I say that I think he probably was, but rather that after the Great War he could hardly have been expected to think in any other way. Consequently your point about modern historians having having their own agendas (just like ancient ones) must be correct. It is simply impossible to make dispassionate value-free judgements about historical facts.
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 28
Posted by Tim of Acleah (U1736633) on Monday, 30th May 2011
fascinating
an excellent post and a very interesting discussion.
regards
Tim
ps what is your view on 'An age of tyrants' by Christopher Snyder?Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 29
Posted by fascinating (U1944795) on Sunday, 19th June 2011
TP, didn't Collingwood simply take the sources (Gildas, Bede and ASC mainly) at face value? The phrase 'the forces of civilisation were giving way to barbarism.'
is really quite factual, in the sense that living in cities ceased.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 30
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Sunday, 19th June 2011
Hi Fascinating
There is a good deal in what you say; especially Gildas of course since Bede draws so heavily on him for the 5th century.
Robin Collingwood was a remarkable combination of historian, philosopher and practical archaeologist. But, rightly or wrongly, he seems to have accepted the account of Gildas uncritically, and also used words like 'civilisation' and 'barbarism' without questioning their theoretical basis. However in his twenties (he was born in 1889) he lived through what he would have considered a period of Germanic 'barbarism'.on a massive scale. Collingwood, and also Mortimer Wheeler, tended to interpret their findings as the movements of peoples, the rise and fall of empires, and the passage of armies. In view of what they had experienced personally they could hardly have done otherwise.
Contemporary archaeologists, who mostly have not shared such life experiences (and who are very cautious when using words like civilised, primitive and barbarian), may be freer to examine objectively the interaction of Iron Age Germanic tribal groups with urbanised Roman society. Whether they have made good use of this freedom is a matter for our individual judgement.
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 31
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 20th June 2011
But how objectively, TP, can, or will, anyone ever examine anything in the past? Looking back over the past 60 years it's so obvious how the prevailing climate has influenced interpretation. From the post war emphasis on conflict and invasion, through the new archaeology's belief that science would solve everything and then moving the focus on to less aggressive explanations with acculturation and appropriation being prioritised to today when, what with concerns over migration and terrorism, there's a resurgence of interest in violence and population movements.
I believe that one of the greatest difficulties in looking back is the temptation to think that, to quote the intro to a recent series, we are looking at us then. We're not, we are looking at people who, apart from the basic biological needs, were largely alien in almost everything that defines them. Even the life of our great grandparents is utterly foreign to us in some of the beliefs, lifestyles and customs they held to.
In a period like the one under consideration where the evidence is scanty, ambivalent, contaminated and insecure the best we can do is speculate sensibly, always willing to adapt and rethink as more evidence emerges, and accept that while it may be possible to be proved wrong in our ideas, it's most likely we can't hope to know for certain if we are right.
That's possibly why it's such an intriguing puzzle.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 32
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Hi ferval
It is not only archaeologists that say sensible things about the past, as I am sure you would be the first to agree.
'We see the world not as it is, but as we are' (Jewish Proverb).
'The past is another country; they do things differently there' (LP Hartley).
'Then, 'twas before my time, the Roman
At yonder heaving hill would stare:
The blood that warms an English yeoman,
The thoughts that hurt him, they were there (AE Housman).
I think it is really important for archaeologists not to give way to interpretational despair but also never to forget to what extent their contemporary thinking may be in advance of popular knowledge. To begin with: you say that 'it's so obvious that the prevailing climate has influenced interpretation'. Now I would say that it is very far from obvious and that the gradual appreciation of the truth of your statement is an enormous advance. I wonder, though, if we have even convinced even every poster on this thread?
I can hardly disagree that the 'new archaeology' didn't solve everything, processualism never adequately explained agency for example, but surely it produced two highly significant developments. Firstly it recognised that archaeology actually needed a body of theory to explain its deductions and make them more secure. Secondly it was associated with vastly improved excavation practice and data acquisition. As you know better than me it focussed on using conventions such as context sheets and records to ensure, as far as possible, that all excavators were functionally the same as each other. But the buried objects were considered as passive; merely waiting for the meaning the archaeologists gave to them!
Archaeology, like geology, is forced to use to process of uniformitarianism in other words the principle that observable processes today also occurred in the past. Without it we would be sailing uncharted waters indeed. But you are absolutely right to question the idea that we can understand even our Victorian ancestors. As an antidote to the view that we can share none of the feelings of our ancestors I would recommend the study of the tombstones of Roman children. There is a fine example at Corbridge Museum which, in my view, confirms Housman's view more eloquently than words of mine can ever do. But taken to extremes your view risks relativism. Relativists seem to have the opinion that all knowledge is culturally contingent and the very act of reasoning is culture specific. The problem with relativism is that if there is no absolute rational knowledge how can we assess competing knowledge claims? Atlantis beckons.
I have no quarrel at all with your wish to speculate sensibly. All theories are wrong but some are a lot wronger than others! Good theories should be useful, parsimonious, adaptable and predictive. If we think that their conclusions are highly tentative we should have the honesty to say so. The guiding principle for archaeological interpretations is not that they tell us the truth, but that they impose secure limitations on our ignorance.
Kind regards,
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 33
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Hi TP,
Atlantis can beckon all it likes, I'm not going!
There's little you say I could argue with, as usual, but I would dispute that my view is necessarily any more relativist then any other as long as the speculation is tested against the evidence and then the degree of fit must separate the possible from the improbable. I fear that the past is so alien that, even with a time machine, we would struggle to understand much of what we saw never mind hope to understand it from their bins and contaminated and redacted documents.
I accept that there are instances such as the Roman children's grave markers that suggest a commonality of feeling but on the other hand, how to explain the Hambledon burials, amongst other places, and didn't they only consider a child to be fully human once it had teeth?
Personally, I'd go for being over 21.
I'm less suggesting that we sail without charts than that our charts are unreliable and often misleading so need to be treated with the utmost care. Was it Jeans who said that the universe is not just queerer than we think but queerer than we can think? Not only the past but people in general are much the same. I'm with Thomas when he says something like 'the remains are not evidence of the past but parts of that past that intrude into our present'. I actually do believe that they only do have the meaning that we impose on them.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 34
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Hi ferval
I agree entirely. We should have to work very hard to manufacturer a real difference of opinion here.
Except, that is, in the matter of quotation attribution! J B S Haldane, it was, who felt that the universe was queerer than we can suppose.
Kind regards
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 35
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Damn, I swithered with quoting Heisenberg who said something very similar but I preferred 'queerer' to 'stranger'. The old brain cells are as unreliable as everything else these days.
Do old posters never die, just forget what they intended to post?Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 36
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Twin Probe
Might I suggest that Collingwood in 1936 was applying the idea of history that he expounded in the pieces that were finally published under that title- particularly that the core purpose of the study of history is not to understand the truth about the past at all but to understand the true challenge of living in the Present. What it is to be who we are as individuals, groups, masses and a whole human race. For, as in the racing fraternity, the best clue to present form and performance capability was the study of past form and performance capability.
In this respect the idea of the Teutonic menace posed by the Anglo-Saxons had a much more contemporary resonance in 1936 than the Great War that had been fought to end all wars and to create a whole new phase of what H.A.L. Fisher called "The Liberal Experiment" in volume three of his "History of Europe".
Publishing this in October 1935 Fisher wrote in his Foreword:- "....And if I speak of Liberty in the wider sense as experimental, it is not because I would wish to disparage Freedom.., but merely to indicate that after gaining ground through the nineteenth century, the tides of liberty have now suddenly receded over wide tracts of Europe. Yet how can the spread of servitude, by whatever benefits it may have been accompanied, be a matter of congratulation? A healthy man needs no narcotics. Only when the moral spine of a people is broken may plaster of Paris become a necessary evil."
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 37
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Hi ferval
Perhaps old posters simply stick to their opinions.
Did you hear that they put the German equivalent of a blue plaque on the Heisenberg residence in Munich? It says "Heisenberg may have slept here".
TP
PS Have you heard that entropy isn't what it used to be?Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 38
Posted by Priscilla (U14315550) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Oh, I don't know, entropy - it's alive and well in my life, TP. I would be useless at a dig. One cubic metre would give me enough to ponder for the rest of my life. That sounds daft but perhaps you will understand. The few large sites that I know well are overwhelming. Perhaps one needs a constrained imagination.
Regards, P.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 39
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Two atoms are in a bar, one says 'I've lost an electron', the other says, 'are you sure?' 'Yes' says the first, 'I'm positive'.
A neutron asks for a beer and the barman pours him one. 'How much is that?' he asks.
'No charge'.
It's OK, I'm leaving now!Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 40
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 20th June 2011
Hi Cass
Well I'm all for a racing analogy, but does it get us anywhere? If the horse's form and ancestry are incorrect does that help us predict its future performance?
I'm happy to agree that the Nazi menace influence between-the -wars historians as much as the Great War. Either way the times were not propitious for regarding 5th century Germanic migrants to Britain as peaceable farmers with a penchant for wood carving.
Best wishes,
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 41
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Monday, 20th June 2011
ferval
Please don't give up the day job.
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 42
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011
Twin Probe
The point is that it is not the work of historians to just write about the past but to pick out those things from the past that are of significance to the present. Thus in the Idea of History Collingwood- perhaps a fan of Agatha Christie- makes a great play of using "the little grey cells" in the crime scene in order to avoid wasting time examining every single detail, but using an understanding of what is actually significant in tackling the job in hand.
But from what I see of modern detective stories science and technology has by-passed those thought processes- at least in fictional presentations- and the modern investigator is profligate with resources calling in ther forensic team so that everything can be put through computer analysis.
As for "predicting the Future" we are constantly doing so on the basis of our past experience, the sensible and intelligent person being aware that we need to cover a range of possibilities. Thus I believe that the professional gambler "hedges his bets" because history tells us that things do not always run "true to form".. But what a scientist might say is that "the exception proves the rule".. When Nadal loses a tennis match, it usually turns out that he was injured.. Or- as in the recent French Open Finals- he was hampered by some preventive dressing and Roger Federrer was beating him easily- until he decided to remove the dressing and risk it.
So getting back to the OP one reason, why there has been a renewed interest in the Dark Ages is that starting perhaps with Aldous Huxley's book about a post Nuclear Holocaust Dark Age that scenario was a popular one producing Mad Max etc, and since the End of the Cold War uncertainties that have been liberated have renewed the idea if "urban jungles" and the collapse of the post-war political and economic system- which seems to be happening in the gang wars amongst inner city youths. There sees to be a recent new interest in "Clockwork Orange" and this idea of "raiding parties" from inner cities out into "green and pleasant land" suburbias.
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 43
Posted by TwinProbe (U4077936) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011
Hi Cass
I guess you tend to see historical problems in literary terms. I confess I can't trace current enthusiasm for the Dark Ages back to Brave New World myself, and your tennis analogy, though undeniably timely, leaves me totally lost.
When early 20th century scholars entered the study of ancient British history via Classics, or via Anglo-Saxon language and literature, there was, for perfectly understandable reasons, an awkward caesura between the Roman and Anglo-Saxon worlds. To contemporary British archaeologists, who like Bruce Willis tend to speak either English or bad English, this gap does not exist. Better still techniques that had proved successful in the prehistoric period can usefully be applied to a period which, though technically historic, has sources which are confusing to say the least. I have to reluctantly admit that the 'matter of Britain' has also played a big part in stimulating interest in the period. A great number of people are fascinated by the 'quest for the historical Arthur' and are very willing to fund research and purchase books which deal, or purport to deal, with this topic.
Clearly you must be correct in your feeling that historians cannot examine the totality of the past. I can scarcely argue that some form of selection is necessary but in my view (and the view of the school of archaeological theory known as post-processualism) this selection process is full of risk. It is fatally easy to use selection to impose a pre-existing interpretation of the past on the data. Even language may be misleading. If I describe a Bronze Age skeleton excavation as a βburialβ I have performed 90% of the interpretation necessary simply by using that word with all its connotations.
Best wishes
TPLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 44
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011
Twin Probe
No I do not see history in liiterary terms but as a key to making life possible from day to day..
Hence my response to Catigern when he asked when I was last involved in "serious" history.. Trying to explain the historical reality of the African slave trade to young Afro-Caribeans in the Brixton region, who needed something more positive for them as individuals than a story of "white power" and black helplessness or corruption, involved very "serious" history with real lives on the line in the short and the long term.
But my thesis- as reflected in the writings of Collingwood and J.H. Plumb in "The Crisis in the Humanities"- is that historians have abdicated their most valuable function as being the best guides to the conduct of current affairs surrendering to the dehumanised output of science and technology that has been essentially based upon "post mortem" analysis rather than observation of real life in action with all of the unpredictabilities it involves ( as those Nature film makers often reveal with the behind the scenes details).
But there are of course many other approaches to the Past than the purely historical, which Collingwood insists should be treated as a "logos"- a pursuit of understanding rather than the kind of collection that is the object of the antiquarian or the chronicler, or even the "theme park" escapist who finds it more pleasant to live in the past as much as possible. The endings are already known.. My wife recently watched a film about an inpsiring US teacher who got her class to read Ann Frank's Diary. And their was a scene that reminded me of the tears in the eyes of our daughter when she watched the TV series that came to its inevitable end. "Why did you let me watch it when you knew she died?"
People have learned to live with the "Bad endings" of the Past and have moved on. It is the Bad endings to come that are worrysome. But we have lost much of our belief in our ability to do much about it.
Perhaps it is appropriate to note on this thread that we have received our regular email from our Druid friend, this time with poems for the Summer Solstice. She was probably down at Stonehenge connecting with her roots, though she comes from New England, and may well be descended from Scandinavian emigrants to the USA.
As Arthur Miller says at the end of "Timebends" we are all trying to make our lives possible.
Regards
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 45
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Tuesday, 21st June 2011
Perhaps as a further comment on the basic theme of this thread, the very title tends to reflect the common belief that real History involves writing up an accurate account of a whole episode and eventually a period- in this case the Dark Ages or aspects of it.
Collingwood accepted that historical thought does need to operate in the context of background knowledge, and that a "scissors and paste" approach might be appropriate in placing the human actions which are the focus of the historians attention within an appropriate setting or context. But all human thought is an exploration of the mind- and History is pre-eminently the study of the working of the human mind.
Hence in his section "History as knowledge of mind" Collingwood wrote:
"History, then, is not, as it has so often been mis-described, the story of successive events or an account of change. Unlike the natural scientist, the historian is not concerned with events as such at all. He is only concerned with those events which are the outward expression of thoughts, and is only concerned with these in so far as they express thoughts....
In one sense, these thoughts are no doubt themselves events happening in time; but since the only way in which the historian can discern them is by re-thinking them for himself , there is another sense, and one very important to the historian, in which they are not in time at all. If the discovery of Pythagoras concerning the square on the hypotenuse is a thought which we to-day can think for ourselves, a thought that constitutes a permanent addition to mathematical knowledge, the discovery of Augustus, that a monarchy could be grafted upon the Republican constitution of Rome..is equally a thought which the student of Roman history can think for himself, a permanent addition to political ideas....
Historical knowledge is the knowledge of what the mind has done in the past, and at the same time it is the redoing of this, the perpetuation of past acts in the present. Its object is therefore not a mere object, something outside the mind which knows it: it is an activity of thought, which can be known only in so far as the knowing mind re-enacts it and knows itself as so doing. To the historian, the activities whose history he is studying are not spectacles to be watched, but experiences to be lived through in his own mind; they are objective, or known to him, only because they are also subjective, or activities of his own.
It may thus be said that historical inquiry reveals to the historian the powers of his own mind..Since all he can know historically is thoughts that he can re-think for himself... And conversely, whenever he finds certain historical matters unintelligible, he has discovered a limitation in his own mind: he has discovered that there are certain ways in which he is not, or no longer, or not yet, able to think. Certain periods of history, sometimes whole generations of historians, find in certain periods of history nothing intelligible, and call them dark ages; but such phrases tell us nothing about those ages themselves, though they tell us a great deal about the persons who use them, namely that they are unable to re-think the thoughts which were fundamental to their life... It is the historian himself who stands at the bar of judgement, and there reveals his own mind in its strengths and weaknesses, its virtues and vices."
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 46
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 22nd June 2011
Certain periods of history, sometimes whole generations of historians, find in certain periods of history nothing intelligible, and call them dark ages;
Μύ
Huh?
"Dark" was always used to indicate absence of data, not absence of intelligible data. Study of the "Dark Ages" in European history has never been hampered by unintelligibility, but acquired the name due to the extreme shortage of data, intelligible or otherwise, pertinent to the period.
Your point about the "rethinkability" of historical data is equally obtuse. If we are not capable of rethinking an historical thought then how, in the resultant absence therefore of a thought, are we even to think that there was thought there to be thought?
Get a grip, Cass. You're in extreme waffle-mode again and your posts are already growing by the foot with the amount of it.
Try something shorter next time - and possibly on a topic to which you can at least attempt to remain relevant.Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 47
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 22nd June 2011
Nordmann
Thank you for addressing a post to me..
I realised that Collingwood's rather abstract philosophy from the Thirties might not be easy reading for many people on the board.. though I am surprised that YOU find his thoughts "waffle".
Of course selecting a few extracts from a large body of work is always likely to make it less intelligible. As you say- what we commonly call THE Dark Age ( as in this thread) suffers from a lack of intelligibility precisely because of the dearth of material which Collingwood would consider the only material that actually makes historical knowledge possible. Because we lack the detailed knowledge of that enables us to say what, when, how, where and why with any certainty: and therefore to really be able to judge from a range of speculations just what various people were actually thinking in shaping those events in the way that they did. It is said that Economics is the study of choices, and surely much the same can be said of History.
A recent reading of a History of Archaeology gave me chapter and verse on the British anthropolist who, on the strength of visiting societies still living with less evolved and traditional technologies postulated that they could show the stages of human evolution.
Hence the archaeological discoveries of mere artefacts and remains could be compared with Nineteenth Century and then Twentieth Century people apparently still living "Bibilical", or "the Ancient World", or even "The Stone Age". While this has made it possible to create general, averaged and "normalised" (and more recently "virtual") models that can breathe life into the bare bones that is all we have left, I do not think that Collingwood would agree that this kind of systems analysis approach actually makes the thinking process behind any specfic acitions and decisions made by people in the past.
To that end really one comes back to the advantages of written evidence that actually helps to reveal more fully the thought process that lay behind any particular action.
But- in line with some of the waffle I have just put on the fascist thread- we are increasingly living in a world in which we are expected not to think for ourselves and exercise the free-will of the Judaio-Christian God, but to depend upon the systems men and the mechanisms that the prophets of the new World Order after 1945, notably J.M. Keynes, promised would look after us and think for us "From the Cradle to the Grave".
In the midst of the ongoing ramifications of the threat of a new collapse into World Chaos, the wave of grass-roots and popular protest in 2011 over the "enslavement" that is now to be imposed by the money men, in whom we have entrusted the conduct of our affairs, faces a new population with just what do you do when you bring a great system to collapse- as happened with the collapse of the Greco-Roman world in the west.
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 48
Posted by an ex-nordmann - it has ceased to exist (U3472955) on Wednesday, 22nd June 2011
But you're not representing Collingwood accurately at all. And besides - he tended to be more concise.
Link to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
-
Message 49
Posted by CASSEROLEON (U11049737) on Wednesday, 22nd June 2011
I would not claim to represent Collingwood- merely to recommend his "Idea of History" as worthy of a "thought-adventure" and that thread was mostly- as I introduced it- a selective quote. Moreover I believe that I have pointed out that, as such, it was inevitably no more than a very brief "taster".
When I discovered Collingwood at the age of seventeen I was pleased to find someone with so much common ground with the ideas that I had already been forming on history.. and which I have been developing ever since with whatever "thought inputs" I can find in order to make my life possible.
But it is very much in line with that Collingwood extract that after so much effort at thought growth in line with the whole universal human experience rather in line with your recent post on the IRA thread about the thought journey involved in that story the complexity and intricacies involved mean that it is very difficult to make concise and simple observations of any positive and substantive import, while it is much easier to be dismissive and destructive.
CassLink to this forum: Dark Age History: Why would YOU write it?
About this Board
The History message boards are now closed. They remain visible as a matter of record but the opportunity to add new comments or open new threads is no longer available. Thank you all for your valued contributions over many years.
or Μύto take part in a discussion.
The message board is currently closed for posting.
The message board is closed for posting.
This messageboard is .
Find out more about this board's
Search this Board
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ iD
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ navigation
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ links
ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ Β© 2014 The ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ is not responsible for the content of external sites. Read more.
This page is best viewed in an up-to-date web browser with style sheets (CSS) enabled. While you will be able to view the content of this page in your current browser, you will not be able to get the full visual experience. Please consider upgrading your browser software or enabling style sheets (CSS) if you are able to do so.