Introduction
I. The Process of History
The purpose of history is to not only study, but to derive meaning from the people, events, and developments of the past, and to use the past as both an encouraging and a cautionary tale for the present in its quest to shape the future. How do historians go about these tasks? What do historians do to “study” and “derive meaning” from previous eras?
First, historians work with both primary and secondary sources from the past. A primary source is one that was produced during the era or event under study. For example, one of the documents included in the present book is the Ordinance of Laborers, a royal document issued by the King of England in 1349, during the years of the Black Death. The Ordinance is a primary source because it was produced during the Plague years by people living and witnessing the events taking place around them. Such sources give us a window into what happened and how those living at that time reacted to and understood what was happening. Newspapers are another example of primary sources, as they report on current happenings and thereby create a record future historians can use to put together a narrative about a particular person or event.
Historians will also rely on secondary sources to help understand the past. Secondary sources are not produced during the time period under study but rather later on, usually by someone examining something that took place in the past with hindsight and utilizing primary sources to help them. For example, a book written in the year 2000 about the Black Death and including a chapter on the Ordinance of Laborers is a secondary source because the author did not live in the mid-1300’s and therefore was not a direct witness to developments in England relating to the Plague. Instead, the author is using primary sources to put together the story of England in the late 1340’s so that readers can understand what happened, how, and why. Taking advantage of secondary sources can help historians fill in gaps in the tale left by primary sources, place a particular event or person into a larger context, and craft an informative and comprehensible narrative for their audience.
It is important to note that sources include both written and non-written records. In addition to available documents historians will also consult extant pottery, archaeological ruins, skeletal remains, and even garbage dumps to gain a more complete view of history. Sticking with our Black Death example, forensics experts are currently examining the teeth and bones of the skeletal remains of plague victims to glean new information regarding how people died, how they were affected by the disease, and even how they may have lived their last few months before succumbing to illness. Additionally, the way Plague victims were buried gives us clues to how society was or was not functioning during these trying times. Long rows of carefully placed skeletons tell us that the dead weren’t haphazardly disposed of by the uncaring living, but rather an organized infrastructure existed to lay out burial grounds, dig trenches, and arrange the deceased in an orderly fashion. We can also surmise that living people were needed to do this, and in fact did so, despite the dangers of the disease spreading to them, perhaps out of concern for the souls of the dead, because they were being handsomely paid, or some combination of those and other reasons.
Employing primary and secondary sources, both written and non-written, allows historians to become temporal detectives, examining at times disparate pieces of information and making connections between them to construct a clearer picture of what happened, who was involved, why they were involved, and how the event in question affected and was affected by other events. The process of history involves three main tasks-reading, writing, and discussing.
Historians spend a great deal of time reading. They read secondary works to better understand the larger story arc of history during a particular time period or surrounding an important person. They read many primary documents to become better acquainted with the direct witnesses, the various viewpoints, and the values and assumptions made by the society in which an event or development took place. Reading books, journal articles, and primary sources gives historians both a breadth of knowledge needed to better understand the details, but also a depth of knowledge needed to fully examine and explain the importance of the details.
Historians also spend time writing about the things they’re researching. Book reviews, journal articles, chapters in edited collections, and monographs are all written by historians who wish to present their research findings to an audience, whether that audience is other specialists in the same field or the general population. Historians work to hone their writing abilities in order to present their research and arguments precisely, clearly, and in an organized fashion that will take the reader through the findings and conclusions so that the author’s primary thesis can be understood.
Finally, historians like to talk about history. They discuss potential lines of research with colleagues and listen to constructive feedback to shore up weak arguments. They present at conferences where they can interact with other historians face to face and hear different points of view and answer questions that may arise. In today’s social media world some even employ platforms like Facebook and Twitter to quickly bounce ideas off one another. They also use journal articles and books to respond to claims other historians have made, examining flaws in the research or holes in the argument while simultaneously proposing their own theories and findings.
The process of history, therefore, is composed of reading, writing, and discussing primary and secondary sources with the end goal of coming to a greater understanding of the past and how it came to be, along with the quest for what the past means to us in the present and how we can employ the past to shape our future. There is much more to reading historical documents, though, than simply giving them a quick once over. Questions need to be asked with every document one reads. As you peruse the documents and excerpts contained in this book it is helpful to keep in mind the following questions: Who? What? Where? When? Why? How?
II. The Questions of History
When completing the first task of the historian, reading primary documents and secondary works, it’s important to become an active reader. An active reader takes the time to highlight certain passages of a text, write out notes and questions they may have about the text, and jot down ideas for how the particular work they’re reading fits in with other documents they’ve read. Some historians also keep running lists of the citations for each document they may use to expedite the process of citing sources in whatever journal article or book they choose to write.
As you begin to read the excerpts contained in this volume, there are six important questions you should ask of every one of them to garner a fuller understanding of what those documents are saying and how each fits into the larger historical puzzle.
Who?
Who wrote a particular document yields important clues as to the document’s purpose. Was the document in question written by a king or some other powerful leader? Was it written by a philosopher at a university? Was it written by an educated member of a lower rank in society? The answers to these questions are quite important, for an edict issued by a king or other leader could likely be an order or a command, or the enunciation of a new set of laws everyone in the kingdom will be expected to follow. A philosopher’s writing will be quite different; rather than demanding that another person or group act in a certain way, such a text is likely for the purpose of education and enlightenment or as a response to another philosopher’s ideas. A document produced by a member of the lower ranks of society may be less refined that those of the other two examples, and may present a very different viewpoint from a royal edict.
What?
There are a few different “what” questions that need to be asked with every document. What is the document trying to say, at least on the surface? A religious text extolling the virtues of the Catholic faith is obviously advertising Catholicism and possibly demonstrating the author’s piety. However, another “what” question to be asked is-what hidden message might there be? While on the surface this kind of document may seem innocuous, there may be certain words or phrases that indicate the text is more than just a statement of support for Catholicism; it may also be a refutation of other types of religious belief, such as Protestantism. Additionally, what has possibly been omitted from this document? At times historical texts tell us more by what they omit than by what they say on the surface. There isn’t always a subtext; sometimes the face value of a document is all that’s there, but being prepared to ask other types of “what” questions is a good exercise in due diligence. Finally, what does this document tell us about the time period/event/person in question? Knowing who wrote a document gives clues as to the document’s purpose, but that’s a two way street; knowing what a document is saying can yield information about the author as well as the larger context in which said document was produced.
Where?
Knowing where a text was produced is an important piece of information, for different geographic locales will produce different cultures that have different values, perspectives on life, and produce different types of sources using different languages and styles. A document produced in England in the late 1300s during the period of the Hundred Years’ War and the English Peasants’ Revolt will offer different assumptions and views than will a document produced in an Italian city-state at the same time that’s enjoying the benefits of the Renaissance. Likewise, a text made in one of the many small principalities of the Holy Roman Empire may look at the world differently, and describe it in different terms, than a text made in the much larger and more powerful French kingdom.
When?
Just as culture, values, and perspectives differ across space they also differ across time periods, so it is important to know when a document was produced, because surrounding events may play a role in the creation and purpose of said document. A royal proclamation produced by the earliest Capetian kings in the late 10th century, when French kings were far less powerful and less wealthy than other landowning lords, will differ in tone and assertion of authority than will a similar proclamation issued during the reign of Louis XIV centuries later at a time when French kings were influencing European wide affairs and had subjected nobles to their power. Similarly, a document issued in Italy in the 11th century will likely be heavily influence by the presence of Catholicism and the Catholic Church, and present the worldview of an ardent believer in a divinely inspired universe, while a document produced by a more human-centered Renaissance author two centuries later will no doubt focus more on the role of man.
Why?
Each of the above questions help answer the “why” questions-why was this document produced? Why was it produced when it was and not before or after? Some texts, such as the Ordinance of Laborers, were produced as reactions to ongoing events, in this case the onset of the Plague in England. Other documents don’t have a single event, or any event, that triggered their creation, therefore the reason why they were produced may be more difficult to discern and can perhaps only be guessed at. Sometimes knowing the purpose of a document answers the question of why it was produced, but that isn’t always true, so once again the question must be asked for the sake of due diligence.
How?
The most important questions deal with “how.” How does this document fit into the larger narrative? How did surrounding events affect this document, and vice versa? How can this document help us understand the past? It’s crucial in history to not examine primary sources in a vacuum; they must be placed within the larger story to truly understand their impact and what light they may shed on historical events. Primary sources serve as clues for historians who, as temporal detectives, combine those clues and fit them together in order to construct a look at the past that is as accurate as possible. This is, then, the end goal of all the reading, writing, and discussing that historians do, to piece together the past, to construct meaning, and to learn.
III. The Limitations of History
The idea of historians constructing the meaning of the past leads to a discussion of the main limitations of historical inquiry, beginning with primary sources. Historians base much of their work on the availability of both written and non-written records, meaning the availability and quality of the sources greatly impacts how complete and accurate our understanding of our history is. For some time periods there is a tremendous volume of primary documentation and non-written sources to choose from, while others yield little to no documentation and scarce non-written materials. Each presents the historian with different challenges.
For periods with abundant resources the problem becomes having to choose which sources to include and which to leave out. There is no way to create one all encompassing work that tells the history of a particular person, event, development, or era and fully discuss all points of view or all interpretations. For that reason historians must choose a particular path and cover certain aspects, a process which necessarily leaves other paths unexplored. One of the more recent trends in historical work is the telling of history from a wider array of perspectives, encompassing groups that haven’t gotten as much attention in the past because they weren’t members of society’s upper echelon-those without political or economic power, or the victims of discrimination whose voices have been ignored for too long. A much more inclusive look at the past is currently being done, enriching the profession and demonstrating that history has always been far more varied and complicated than previously believed. Despite this, no one historian can explore everything history has to offer, meaning they must actively decide what sources to consult and include in their research and create a narrative or argument based on those sources. The result is history that, even though it may be well researched and well written, is necessarily incomplete and subjective, depending as it does on what was researched and what sources were explored.
For periods without much documentation or available sources the opposite challenge presents itself. Historians scour to find enough information to be able to craft an adequate narrative, and when they can’t find that information they’re left making inferences and suppositions to try and fill in the gaps. Some periods of human history, such as the very long period before humans began settling down into sedentary communities, yield such little evidence that solid conclusions are hard to come by, leading to frustrating uncertainty about what really happened. This uncertainty, though, has led to some of the most intense debates in the field, as a wider array of theories are acceptable when there is little evidence to discount them. All of this is to say that although the field of history is an important one and historians are skilled in their trade, the profession isn’t without its limitations.
Another limitation deals with the very human flaws of those practicing history. Every individual, historian or not, is influenced in their views, perspectives, beliefs, interpretations, and assumptions about the world and its operations by the culture in which they were raised. It is impossible to completely separate one’s self from one’s background and upbringing. For the historian, ignoring that basic fact can lead to applying the moral codes and beliefs of today to the events of the past, possibly creating overly critical looks at those who came before us and the actions they may, or may not, have taken. This phenomenon of placing ideas and values into time periods to which they don’t belong is known as an anachronism, and historians work very hard to avoid being anachronistic. Rather, historians make every attempt to understand the people of the past in their own time, in the context of their own morality, their own society with its values and perspectives, not those of modern researchers living in a world far different from that of the Middle Ages or the Roman Republic. Historians can only do so much to get out of their own time period, however, as some ideas and ways of thinking are so natural that they may not even realize their own contemporary bias, which is why historians normally engage in extensive editing processes with other experts in the field to try and ensure their arguments and interpretations are made in good faith and their potential blind spots regarding biases are discovered and limited as much as possible.
All of this is not to say that history is flawed beyond measure and we shouldn’t trust the work historians do. On the contrary, in order for students and the general public to trust historians and the field of history we must confidently admit and face the difficulties of the profession, acknowledging potential limitations of our research and suggesting possible ways to account for such limitations. Individual historians must also perform their due diligence regarding researching, interpreting, and presenting the past, for one of the best ways to not only maintain but to increase respect for historians and their trade is to produce high quality scholarship, while one of the best ways to damage the field is to produce flawed, low quality scholarship.
For the present volume the challenge of choosing sources is the most serious, for trying to cover such an extensive geographic area and time period as Western civilization up to the year 1715 with any sort of depth or adequacy is nearly impossible. Therefore this book is closely tied to the class in which it is utilized. The class itself covers the basic narrative about the various time periods and civilizations covered, while the book is a collection of documents meant to give students a bit more depth into some of the general themes touched on in the classroom, whether that room is real or virtual. The editor fully acknowledges that some aspects of history are not covered in this volume; for example, there are very few documents dealing with trade or economics. It is the editor’s intention to use the book to focus on topics deemed to be the most pertinent for students to be exposed to within the time frame in which those topics must be taught. Perhaps in the future a more comprehensive and inclusive volume will be produced that will more satisfactorily cover the history of Western civilization. For the present the editor hopes that students will find the present work informative and interesting and that other historians may find value in it.
