Does the Date Still Matter

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4558630
AutoresDavid Bate (0000-0002-6138-1068), David Bates (0000-0001-7438-9491, University of London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2005
Volumen78
Número202
Páginas443-464
Fecha de publicación2005-11-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaHistorical Research (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0950-3471 • E-ISSN: 1468-2281
EditorialOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1111/j.1468-2281.2005.00355.x
OpenAlexW2164344023
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas18

1066 was once regarded as the date everyone knew. It remains widely known among the large numbers of the general public with an interest in history. This article suggests that popular perceptions of 1066 are a range of at times confused memories and that so-called academic history has in the last fifty years had little impact on them. It acknowledges that revolutionary changes in contemporary historians' approaches to the past have made 1066 less significant as a date, yet argues that the date's very popularity with the general public and the centrality of change to historical analysis makes a clear perception and extensive dissemination crucial. It suggests that 1066 was ultimately an act of legitimated and purposefully directed violence and needs to be discussed as such. It is necessary to guard against automatically associating every change in the decades after 1066 with the impact of the Conquest and to see them instead as often being aspects of wider processes. It is also crucial to see 1066 as an event of European significance and to set it within the multicultural history of the British Isles. It had consequences which fundamentally shaped English and British history. Perhaps surprisingly, new information and new interpretations of long familiar sources are possible

Historical Economic and Social Studies · History