MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 
Inventing History : forgery: a great British tradition (British History)
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 141, 142, 143 ... 178, 179, 180  Next
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

No, I don't really. On further enquiry it appears they both happened, as advertised. The exception that proves the rule? Mebbe. One produced the other? Don't see how. A tendency to call things 'great' when the London theatre re-took to the stage? Doesn't seem so. [Hatty comment: when did they first get called Great?]

One semi-interesting point: how come the new Carolingian regime actually got strengthened by these twin misfortunes (three if you throw in the Dutch sailing up the Medway) in an age when these things tended to be viewed as signs of the Mandate of Heaven? Because they took resolute action hardly seems enough since they were spectacularly ineffective. Looked energetic, I suppose we would say nowadays. And caring. The Mrs May at Grenfell factor.

There's something there but I'm damned if I can see it.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

A fascinating insight into academic attitudes was provided by one of Hatt’s Spats, as wider and wider sections of the twittersphere are not calling them. I won’t say what it was all about, they’re all sui generis, but it included this breathless piece of prose from milady

Harriet Vered The provenance doesn't support the admittedly unclear dating. In the absence of the original, it would appear the BL's C17th copy is the sole manuscript. Even supposing your 'early twelfth century' claim were correct, that'd be over half a century later, hardly contemporaneous.

The bloke in her sights calls himself a medieval historian

Marc Morris It's not *my* early twelfth-century claim, it is the consensus of every historian, palaeographer and codicologist who has ever examined it. The date is uncontroversial. Are you seriously suggesting it was written in the c17th?

Dunno about you, but I get the clear impression of serried savants with magnifying glasses though if you really thought about it there is one troubling word there, consensus. Are there outliers coming up with ‘late twelfth century’, that sort of thing? But that’s not really the issue...
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

The point is that every piece of physical evidence purporting to emanate from the Middle Ages should be controversial. It does not matter how many experts are using how many scholarly techniques, they are all saying “It looks like an early twelfth century manuscript to me” and they are all up against someone who has been told, “Make me an early twelfth century manuscript.”

This may be an early twelfth century abbot talking to an early twelfth century scribe in an early twelfth century scriptorium or it may be a seventeenth century abbot talking to a seventeenth century calligraphist who specialises in turning out early twelfth century manuscripts or it may be a nineteenth century manuscript dealer talking to a nineteenth century manuscript forger, but on this evidence the forces of light and shade are not quite what they seem...
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

For a start, academics have no skin in the game. Rather the reverse in fact since they have a vested interest in maximising the raw material that provides their daily bread, in this case medieval manuscripts. There is plenty to gain from pronouncing a manuscript genuine and there is little penalty if they get it wrong. A forger gets his nose slit and/or hanged if he gets it wrong. You can probably work out where the balance-of-expertise is in such a scenario. And then there's...
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

... the fact there are not really 'serried ranks' of anything. Hatty's interlocutor is a medieval historian. His business is medieval manuscripts. They are discussing a medieval manuscript. Yet it is not "his" manuscript. Would a mathematician say, "It's not my quadratic equation formula"? Would an Eng Lit person say, "It's not my Jane Austen"? Of course this gent is saying (and after all it's only Twitter) "I'm not an expert about this particular manuscript" but then who, pray, is? He is assuming there are serried ranks of historians, paleographers and codicologists out there who are experts on this manuscript. Well, only kinda...
Send private message
Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Switching on the telly last night I caught the tail-end of a repeat BBC4 documentary on the Normans; they'd just invaded Ireland (1171). Some years later a work on the topography of Ireland was produced by Gerald of Wales in which he portrayed the Irish as non-Christian barbarians, or so said Robert Bartlett, one of our finest medieval historians. Prof Bartlett homed in on a rather sweet picture in Gerald's manuscript showing two lightly clad men rowing a coracle and explained this state of undress is tantamount to calling them 'savages' which made me chuckle as rowers on the Thames never have much on.

More worryingly, Bartlett dismissed Gerald's report of non-Christian Ireland as a fabrication because 'of course Irish Christianity is much older than English Christianity'. No evidence for Bartlett's claim was forthcoming since none exists but he backed it up by accusing Gerald and the Normans of denigrating the Irish and initiating a colonialist attitude that would endure for the next seven or eight centuries.

Gerald's influence was such that even in the 17th century, commentators such as Geoffrey Keating noted that all foreign commentators on Ireland wrote "in imitation of Cambrensis". Among the 16th-century luminaries who were familiar with the work and drew upon it in their own writings were John Leland, John Bale, Abraham Ortelius, Henry Sidney, Philip Sidney, Edmund Campion, Hooker, Holinshed, Hanmer, William Herbert and William Camden. Camden produced the first full printed edition of the work at Frankfurt in 1602.

Prof Bartlett declared that colonialist attitudes were half-half in Wales (north vs south?), Scotland managed to be independent enough not to be subject to colonialism and Ireland was the main victim. That would all change when Irish historians wrote about Irish history, according to Wiki

Gerald's depiction of the Irish as savage and primitive was challenged and refuted by a number of Irish writers. The 17th century saw the production of several prominent attacks on Gerald, including Cambrensis Eversus (1662) by John Lynch, and works by Geoffrey Keating, Philip O'Sullivan Beare, and Stephen White.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Topographia_Hibernica

It is extraordinary, but not unusual, for respected historians such as Robert Bartlett to quote from a work, even include it on students' set book lists, but if it contains something that conflicts with their beliefs, they call it an untruth without being troubled by the obvious contradiction.
Send private message
Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

The 17th century saw the production of several prominent attacks on Gerald, including Cambrensis Eversus (1662) by John Lynch, and works by Geoffrey Keating, Philip O'Sullivan Beare, and Stephen White.

A lost work written by Philip O'Sullivan Beare [c. 1590 – 1660], an Irish soldier and then author of the Catholic History of Ireland, has just been published, reported the Irish Times in 2009

A HANDWRITTEN Latin manuscript that was missing for 300 years has been translated into English for the first time by an 81-year-old Irish scholar. University College Cork (UCC) historian Denis O’Sullivan, a former surgeon at Cork University Hospital (CUH), spent more than three years painstakingly translating the historical manuscript and his finished work, The Natural History of Ireland,was launched in Cork last night.

O’Sullivan’s work is based on a manuscript, Zoilomastix, written by Phillip O’Sullivan Beare, who was exiled to the continent after the Battle of Kinsale in 1601.

Which language does it need to be translated from? Latin? Swedish?

Lost for nearly 300 years, the handwritten manuscript of the Zoilomastixwas found at the University of Uppsala, Sweden, in 1932. The title is Latin and refers to Gerald’s work as a scourge on the Irish people.

O’Sullivan translated the text using a copy of the text he obtained from University College Dublin, as the original text remains in Sweden.

What was it doing in Sweden in the first place and why isn't Uppsala letting Dublin get its mitts on the 'original'?

According to History Ireland magazine, the presence of Beare's Natural History in Sweden dates to 1690

It was acquired by J. G. Sparwenfeld from the Marqués of Astorga in 1690, having been written in Spain some time around 1626.

Johann Gabriel Sparwenfeld, a Swedish diplomat, linguist and diarist, also 'acquired' another valued book, Stockholm's (or as may be, Canterbury's) Codex Aureus

The Stockholm Codex Aureus (Stockholm, National Library of Sweden, MS A. 135, also known as the "Codex Aureus of Canterbury") is a Gospel book written in the mid-eighth century in Southumbria, probably in Canterbury, whose decoration combines Insular and Italian elements.

It would have had a bejewelled cover but was, surprise surprise, kidnapped by, and ransomed from, Vikings. Provenance is hazy, but has definitely been in Sweden since 1690

Provenance
In the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries it was in Spain, and in 1690 it was bought for the Swedish royal collection. It is now kept in the National Library of Sweden.

Ownership
Jerónimo Zurita (d. 1580); Carthusians of Aula Dei, Zaragoza; Count-Duke of Olivares, Gaspar de Guzmán (1587–1645). Acquired by J. G. Sparwenfeld 8. 1. 1690.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

which made me chuckle as rowers on the Thames never have much on

"Sociological interest, is it, madam?"
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

No evidence for Bartlett's claim was forthcoming since none exists

I don't think you can say this. Certainly no proof exists. These charters are evidence and while you and me believe them to be bogus, we in turn have no proof that they are, only non-contemporaneous. We hold ourselves to higher standards than academics, remember.

But more generally we are faced with more layers-of-belief than when dealing with English history. We can agree, I think, that the basic drive is just to get some history in the bank. It is too unsettling for all concerned to face a situation where you have only archaeology until 1171. After that you have not only the competing claims of Normans ("there ain't no history, they can't read or write") and native Irish ("plenty, don't you worry about that") but Rome ("we'll take the Irish saints") and London ("we'll provide the saints") and then Protestants ("there are no saints") and then nationalists ("we go way back before the saints") and finally liberal do-gooding academics ("if it's Irish, we're suckers for the lot").

AE as usual only asks that academic disciplines apply their own rules. There is archaeology but no history before 1171; there is tendentious history from 1171 to ... some point after the Casement Diaries. Possibly some point after 2020.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

He is assuming there are serried ranks of historians, paleographers and codicologists out there who are experts on this manuscript. Well, only kinda...

As I was saying before I was so rudely interrupted, it's not a matter of serried ranks so much as houses of cards. The procedure is always the same

1. There is a manuscript purporting to be early medieval which has a hazy provenance going back to late medieval and a secure history going back to modern times
2. It is already in the books as early medieval. This is the crucial bit. Except in the rarest circumstances, manuscripts are assumed to be what they seem to be. Even when they are exposed as forgeries this only shifts them to early medieval forgeries.
3. A paleographer examines it and pronounces it to be early medieval. Since forgers have gone to some trouble to make it look early medieval this is not surprising. Since it looks exactly like all the other (we say forged) early medieval manuscripts they are using as exemplars, this is doubly unsurprising.
4. A codicologist examines it ditto ditto ditto ditto
5. Historians use it as primary evidence to construct early medieval history
6. Other historians elevate it all to national history (or whatever form of history they are teaching)
7. After a bit there is nobody left alive on this our good earth who doesn't assume it's all cut-and-dried
8. Someone carbon tests a single full stop on a single early medieval manuscript
9. House of cards collapses
10. Riots in the streets, civilisation falls, manuscript technology is all that is possible, they crumble into dust, there is only archaeology.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

In November 1673, Pepys was elected for Castle Rising on the elevation of its member, Sir Robert Paston, to the peerage

Question: Which is the best known primary source for English social history after the Pepys Diaries?
Answer: The Paston Letters
Conclusion: I'm saying now't.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

But should you wish to add the third in the great triumvirate of English social commentary, the Evelyn Diaries, try this one for size. The Evelyn Diaries were published by a bloke called Bray

A preserved 1755 diary by then-18-year-old Bray contains the entry: "After Dinner Went to Miss Seale's to play at Base Ball, with her, the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford, H. Parsons & Jolly. Drank tea and stayed till 8." Baseball historians consider this one of the earliest documented references to the sport although the rules of the specific game referenced by Bray are unknown.

One for the sports memorabilia market there. Over to the Pastons

In May 1666, Robert Paston wrote a letter to his wife mentioning "a game of criquett (sic) on Richmond Green" which is the first reference to cricket at Richmond Green, a popular venue for important matches during the 17th and 18th centuries.

One for the sports memorabilia market there.
Send private message
Ishmael


In: Toronto
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Mick Harper wrote:
Which is the best known primary source for English social history after the Pepys Diaries?


I no longer believe these genuine.

This situation is far worse than you imagine.
Send private message
Mick Harper
Site Admin

In: London
View user's profile
Reply with quote

I've been thinking England never existed for some time.
Send private message
Hatty
Site Admin

In: Berkshire
View user's profile
Reply with quote

Pepys's Diary came out just a few years following the success of the Diary of John Evelyn. The two diaries were produced almost simultaneously but a hundred and fifty years after Pepys's and Evelyn's lifetimes..

Evelyn's Diary was transcribed and published by a lawyer and antiquary called William Bray, whose patron was John Evelyn, a great-grandson of the John Evelyn. Bray turns out to have also kept a diary, not at all noteworthy except for one unexpected entry: it allegedly contains the first known mention of baseball.

The story of the sudden discovery of the section of Bray's diary with the baseball entry involved David Block, author of Baseball before We Knew It:

While filming the Major League Baseball documentary “Base Ball Discovered” in England, he and director Sam Marchiano met Tricia St. John Barry, who responded to a BBC piece on the film crew being in country, looking at the roots of baseball.... She claimed to possess a volume of a previously unknown William Bray diary that contained one of the earliest-known references — and at that time the oldest extant original reference — to baseball. Until the MLB.com crew met her, the only known Bray diary volumes were held by Surrey History Centre, and dated from 1756–1832. The newly discovered journal, which covers Bray’s life from 1754–1755, contains this entry from Easter Monday, March 31st, 1755:

“Went to Stoke church this morn.- After dinner, went to Miss Jeale’s to play at base ball with her the 3 Miss Whiteheads, Miss Billinghurst, Miss Molly Flutter, Mr. Chandler, Mr. Ford and H. Parsons. Drank tea and stayed til 8.”
Send private message
Display posts from previous:   
Reply to topic Goto page Previous  1, 2, 3 ... 141, 142, 143 ... 178, 179, 180  Next

Jump to:  
Page 142 of 180

MemberlistThe Library Index  FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   RegisterRegister   ProfileProfile   Log in to check your private messagesLog in to check your private messages   Log inLog in 


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group