Historical Truth and the Miraculous Past
The Use of Oral Evidence in Twelfth-Century Latin Historical Writing on the First Crusade
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9737293 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Simon John (0000-0003-0728-0175, Balliol College , Oxford, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2015 |
| Volume | 130 |
| Issue | 543 |
| Pages | 263-301 |
| Publication date | 2015-04-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | The English Historical Review (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0013-8266 • E-ISSN: 1477-4534 |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1093/ehr/cev054 |
| OpenAlex | W1977830155 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
This article uses a number of twelfth-century Latin chronicles of the First Crusade (1096–99) as a point of entry into a wider discussion of medieval attitudes toward historical truth. It analyses how chroniclers used and interpreted spoken evidence in the composition of their accounts of the crusade. It is asserted that, if modern scholars are properly to understand those chroniclers’ methods, it must be recognised that twelfth-century conceptions of historical truth were vastly different from their modern equivalents. In that period authors could discern the truth of an oral report in a number of ways. While medieval chroniclers in general often emphasised the identity and status of the witnesses who had provided the reports in order to authenticate them, it is shown here that chroniclers of the First Crusade discussed the identity of their informants in only a small number of instances. However, of the crusade may have approached spoken material concerning the expedition according to a methodology which was more often exercised in this era in the writing of hagiography. According to that methodology, the historical truth of an oral report relating to the crusade could be discerned from the expedition’s place within sacred history, that is, those events during which God had intervened directly in the world by means of miracles. This essay concludes by setting out its implications for modern approaches towards twelfth-century writing about the past
Aesthetics · Archaeology · Art · Documentary evidence · Identity (music · Literature · Medieval Latin · Order (exchange · Period (music · Byzantine Studies and History · Classics · Historical and Linguistic Studies · History · Medieval History and Crusades · Philosophy
| Citations per year | 0.43 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2019 - 2022 (4) |
| Highly cited | No |