Historical fiction writer here. I'm pleased to see I didn't propound any of your constructs. (Okay, maybe a little too much rain but it was England.) I was very interested in this: "how each narrative about the battle serves the agenda of its author." My novel is about Isabelle d'Angouleme, King John's 2nd wife. Her few mentions by the chroniclers (all male) are derogatory: Jezebel, the Helen of the Middle Ages. But as I created her life (based on research) I came to admire her strength as she grew from a pawn in a marriage game to a woman in charge of her own life. Anyway, loved the post.
Right!? It is what I found as I dove into research for my biblical historical novel too! And really why I started my work on Deconstructing Patriarchy…you might like this https://youtu.be/yG124_pGZII?si=mL9s-7fU2uc1Yzkd
Brilliant, thanks. I so agree on the availability of journals. Once you stop studying you’re cut off, ok you can get free access to Jstor for a certain amount but it’s not well known is it and journals are not well known either unless you’ve studied to degree level.
The access to academic information is amazing, if you know where it is and exists.
I also agree about Substack, I’m coming across so much nuanced, well researched and informed reading about areas I know nothing about. It’s great!
Great list. Another one I would add is the belief in the 'Dung Ages' trope - that everything was filthy, dark, drab, and everyone wore those stupid Hollywood leather jerkins with outrageously large stitches. Clothing was often well made, colourful, and extravagant! (Hence sumptuary laws)
I have been aware for a while now of the gulf between what I learned in school or from general culture, and what actual historians understand. Thank you for the essential reading list.
I LOVE this topic…debunking what we were taught about history based usually on what i call the PATRIARCHAL LENS…the thang we must deconstruct (thus my channel’s name) if we want to get out of current day issues. I wish I had had this post and @hollyabrowns live from wed before filming this. Would love to have real historian’s (amateur or not) take on how I did and if I need to do more. The next few weeks I dive into the bedfellow of history - myth and the purposes of it in “preserving” the history we have been taught. Anywho, excited to learn more from you and Holly!!
LOVE everything here! I kept seeing sentences that were a ‘must’ to restack - a sign of a fantastic essay to me. Here’s to challenging those false narratives, particularly narrowing that gulf between academic and popular history.
Thanks so much for the reading links! A lot of this I've caught the gist of in passing when trying to "hang" in more academic spaces but I'm excited to learn more specifics!
Wow. My mind was blown by that first one. I graduated high school in 2001 and still learnt about feudalism. I enjoyed history at school and keen to get a better understanding of it so will definitely look into some of these books. Thanks for adding those in there.
That feudalism one is catching a lot of attention. I'm going to do another post on it specifically to go into more detail. But please go check the sources out, those are the real historians and their expertise and they can do a better job than I can on explaining it all. :)
Interesting post. If (as is widely accepted) the 'dark ages' were not so, why are there such a dearth of written sources. For instance, for hundreds of years after the withdrawal of Rome from the British isles the number of written sources are tiny (Gildas, Bede, etc). Why didn't so much of Europe retain a strong written tradition?
That's a great question! I think the term 'dark ages' was coined during the Renaissance when they were comparing the Middle Ages to what came before...the classical period. To them, there was a marked decline in the things that defined a civilized and cultured society (e.g. literature and art). I think today with all we've uncovered from the Middle Ages, not just from the written sources, but from many other types of sources as well, we've seen that it wasn't such a dark time. There were a lot of amazing things that came out of that time period, in regards to art, literature, science, philosophy, etc.
My understanding from studies in the northern climes is that oral tradition was considered authorative, and soft materials used in the warmer drier climes of southern Europe could not, and did not, survive very well and so the written sources are limited or totally lacking. Earlier medievalists considered this a sign of barbarism and dark times.
Another thing to consider are monuments, which were made of stone in the southerly regions of Europe, and so survived, unlike wooden structures in the north. Hence another “sign” of the lack of civilisation and culture.
So we might also consider that Northern Europe lacked a classical period.
That feudalism one is catching a lot of attention. I'm going to do another post on it specifically to go into more detail. But please go check the sources out, those are the real historians and their expertise and they can do a better job than I can on explaining it all. :)
And actually, Lydia, would you be willing to come on a interview with me that I could publish on my YouTube channel about this very topic perhaps expanding on that YouTube video for people based on your experience in your Time era that you focus on?
Excellent! when I taught medieval history I did whole lessons on some of these. Hopefully some of it stuck and my kiddos will blame Petrarch for the idea of the Dark Ages and remember that Poitiers was just a raiding party.
Oh my gosh oh my gosh oh my gosh.
The next thing you’re going to do is tell me Pluto isn’t a planet.
You’ve destroyed all my high school education ( which admittedly was way long ago in the last century).
Historical fiction writer here. I'm pleased to see I didn't propound any of your constructs. (Okay, maybe a little too much rain but it was England.) I was very interested in this: "how each narrative about the battle serves the agenda of its author." My novel is about Isabelle d'Angouleme, King John's 2nd wife. Her few mentions by the chroniclers (all male) are derogatory: Jezebel, the Helen of the Middle Ages. But as I created her life (based on research) I came to admire her strength as she grew from a pawn in a marriage game to a woman in charge of her own life. Anyway, loved the post.
Right!? It is what I found as I dove into research for my biblical historical novel too! And really why I started my work on Deconstructing Patriarchy…you might like this https://youtu.be/yG124_pGZII?si=mL9s-7fU2uc1Yzkd
Brilliant, thanks. I so agree on the availability of journals. Once you stop studying you’re cut off, ok you can get free access to Jstor for a certain amount but it’s not well known is it and journals are not well known either unless you’ve studied to degree level.
The access to academic information is amazing, if you know where it is and exists.
I also agree about Substack, I’m coming across so much nuanced, well researched and informed reading about areas I know nothing about. It’s great!
Great list. Another one I would add is the belief in the 'Dung Ages' trope - that everything was filthy, dark, drab, and everyone wore those stupid Hollywood leather jerkins with outrageously large stitches. Clothing was often well made, colourful, and extravagant! (Hence sumptuary laws)
"Yes!" to everything you said.
I have been aware for a while now of the gulf between what I learned in school or from general culture, and what actual historians understand. Thank you for the essential reading list.
I LOVE this topic…debunking what we were taught about history based usually on what i call the PATRIARCHAL LENS…the thang we must deconstruct (thus my channel’s name) if we want to get out of current day issues. I wish I had had this post and @hollyabrowns live from wed before filming this. Would love to have real historian’s (amateur or not) take on how I did and if I need to do more. The next few weeks I dive into the bedfellow of history - myth and the purposes of it in “preserving” the history we have been taught. Anywho, excited to learn more from you and Holly!!
https://youtu.be/yG124_pGZII?si=mL9s-7fU2uc1Yzkd
LOVE everything here! I kept seeing sentences that were a ‘must’ to restack - a sign of a fantastic essay to me. Here’s to challenging those false narratives, particularly narrowing that gulf between academic and popular history.
Thanks so much for the reading links! A lot of this I've caught the gist of in passing when trying to "hang" in more academic spaces but I'm excited to learn more specifics!
Wow. My mind was blown by that first one. I graduated high school in 2001 and still learnt about feudalism. I enjoyed history at school and keen to get a better understanding of it so will definitely look into some of these books. Thanks for adding those in there.
That feudalism one is catching a lot of attention. I'm going to do another post on it specifically to go into more detail. But please go check the sources out, those are the real historians and their expertise and they can do a better job than I can on explaining it all. :)
Interesting post. If (as is widely accepted) the 'dark ages' were not so, why are there such a dearth of written sources. For instance, for hundreds of years after the withdrawal of Rome from the British isles the number of written sources are tiny (Gildas, Bede, etc). Why didn't so much of Europe retain a strong written tradition?
That's a great question! I think the term 'dark ages' was coined during the Renaissance when they were comparing the Middle Ages to what came before...the classical period. To them, there was a marked decline in the things that defined a civilized and cultured society (e.g. literature and art). I think today with all we've uncovered from the Middle Ages, not just from the written sources, but from many other types of sources as well, we've seen that it wasn't such a dark time. There were a lot of amazing things that came out of that time period, in regards to art, literature, science, philosophy, etc.
My understanding from studies in the northern climes is that oral tradition was considered authorative, and soft materials used in the warmer drier climes of southern Europe could not, and did not, survive very well and so the written sources are limited or totally lacking. Earlier medievalists considered this a sign of barbarism and dark times.
Another thing to consider are monuments, which were made of stone in the southerly regions of Europe, and so survived, unlike wooden structures in the north. Hence another “sign” of the lack of civilisation and culture.
So we might also consider that Northern Europe lacked a classical period.
Your claim about Feudalism is one I've never heard before. In Spain, Feudalism is alive and well, and is taught in Universities.
I'd like to understand where your notion comes from better if possible.
That feudalism one is catching a lot of attention. I'm going to do another post on it specifically to go into more detail. But please go check the sources out, those are the real historians and their expertise and they can do a better job than I can on explaining it all. :)
And actually, Lydia, would you be willing to come on a interview with me that I could publish on my YouTube channel about this very topic perhaps expanding on that YouTube video for people based on your experience in your Time era that you focus on?
But one thing we can be certain will NEVER be deconstructed:
Men have always hated women (i.e., misogyny).
Excellent! when I taught medieval history I did whole lessons on some of these. Hopefully some of it stuck and my kiddos will blame Petrarch for the idea of the Dark Ages and remember that Poitiers was just a raiding party.