SH Archive Ask Pro | - Questions for History Professionals

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Son of a Bor
Date: 2020-03-07 15:40:16
Reaction Score: 1

As will we all, I think.

I would express it as, they will die believing they 'know' the truth, while actually holding to a opposition that a reasonable, logical thinker would dismiss.

Yes, you are right.

I do know better than to make this slip. In my pile of degrees is an MA in Philosophy. Thank you.

(An aside: Although I still read Aristotle from time to time, and I highly recommend his writings on Ethics in particular, I have, nowadays, no idea who or what he was.)

 

[Huaqero]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Huaqero
Date: 2020-03-07 15:45:36
Reaction Score: 2

So, we have been forced to start discussing about 'people of colour in Europe', when all over this forum we have elements that point to actually White people being all over the world. I smell a rat...

 

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Oisín
Date: 2020-03-07 16:27:57
Reaction Score: 1

Stop distracting.

There is far too much nonsense going on in this thread. All other questions are irrelevant and you don't need to be giving anyone guidance on the educational system. You've responded to sexuality, gender, race, and now truth... Just answer:

What is the oldest primary source that you have worked with? Be prepared to respond when you're challenged on its authenticity and origin.

Alright, we can come back to the question of truth (it seems to be at the heart of our disagreements). I didn't realise people were so interested in that question.

There are a few answers to it.

I am a modern historian, so the sources I use are, for the most part, very modern. I'd say the oldest primary source I have looked at for my academic work was the Mountjoy Gaol Registration books, they have entires dating back to when the prison received its first convicts in 1850. When I saw them two years ago they had been in continuous possession of the Mountjoy Prison authorities since their creation. They have since been transferred to the National Archives I think, where they are being catalogued.

In my personal life I have read the front page of a newspaper from 1788, it was called The Public Register, or, Freeman's Journal. As far as I remember not very much was happening that day. We found it balled up in a cavity inside a stone wall in my great grandmothers house. The house had been in continuous possession of our family since the beginning of the 19th century. The family who lived there had all been small farmers. The house had not been renovated or altered since it was built in the late 18th century, so it seems pretty fair to assume that that is when the newspaper went in.

So those are the oldest textual sources I have worked with.

When I worked in a museum the oldest thing I worked with was the skeleton of a woman who had had leprosy. Her body was excavated from the cemetery of a Lazar house that had been in use between 1350 and 1500. I no longer have access to the provenance details on this.

So, we have been forced to start discussing about 'people of colour in Europe', when all over this forum we have elements that point to actually White people being all over the world. I smell a rat...

I'm not forcing anyone to discuss anything. I mentioned the history of people of colour in Europe in passing as an example of some of the interesting work being done by contemporary historians. Feralimal and Worsaae asked about sources, so that is how we got talking about it. I'm not trying to derail anyone's conversation, just trying to respond to as many of the questions here that I have time to.

 

[Whitewave]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: whitewave
Date: 2020-03-07 16:58:25
Reaction Score: 7

Alright, we can come back to the question of truth (it seems to be at the heart of our disagreements). I didn't realise people were so interested in that question.

There are a few answers to it.

I am a modern historian, so the sources I use are, for the most part, very modern. I'd say the oldest primary source I have looked at for my academic work was the Mountjoy Gaol Registration books, they have entires dating back to when the prison received its first convicts in 1850. When I saw them two years ago they had been in continuous possession of the Mountjoy Prison authorities since their creation. They have since been transferred to the National Archives I think, where they are being catalogued.

In my personal life I have read the front page of a newspaper from 1788, it was called The Public Register, or, Freeman's Journal. As far as I remember not very much was happening that day. We found it balled up in a cavity inside a stone wall in my great grandmothers house. The house had been in continuous possession of our family since the beginning of the 19th century. The family who lived there had all been small farmers. The house had not been renovated or altered since it was built in the late 18th century, so it seems pretty fair to assume that that is when the newspaper went in.

So those are the oldest textual sources I have worked with.

When I worked in a museum the oldest thing I worked with was the skeleton of a woman who had had leprosy. Her body was excavated from the cemetery of a Lazar house that had been in use between 1350 and 1500. I no longer have access to the provenance details on this.

I suspect you're missing the reason for so much of the antagonism and hostility directed at you. Kudos for hanging in there.
In our research on this site we've discovered that many documents originate from the 1800's, maybe a little earlier. They all seem to reference earlier documents from which they were COPIED. There's a suspicious dearth of original documents that we're certain , and for which we have evidence, dating back further than 200-300 years ago.
Since all of our current history is based on these recent documents, many believe our historical narrative was completely fabricated in the 200-300 year timeframe mentioned.
When asking for "truth", we're basically asking for verifiable evidence that all of our history isn't just an invented myth.
You might want to spend some time perusing the site to get a better idea of the conspiracy theories regarding history before further subjecting yourself to unnecessary hammering. Kind of like reading the textbook before showing up for class. The threads Korban Dallas mentioned would be a good start for an introductory familiarization of the questions being posed to you. Rather eye-opening information as well as entertaining reading.

 

[Huaqero]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Huaqero
Date: 2020-03-07 17:07:54
Reaction Score: 3

I mentioned the history of people of colour in Europe in passing as an example

"Please feel free to ask any questions you have ever wanted to ask a historian "
"...I mentioned the history of people of colour in Europe in passing as an example..."
"... going looking for women or people of colour in a medieval context. You know they exist, so you look through the sources for evidence of them and if you find it you try and interpret it ...".

This is SJW political sneaky tactic nonsense and I strongly recommend we abstain from this.

 

[Whitewave]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: whitewave
Date: 2020-03-07 17:47:17
Reaction Score: 8

"Please feel free to ask any questions you have ever wanted to ask a historian "
"...I mentioned the history of people of colour in Europe in passing as an example..."
"... going looking for women or people of colour in a medieval context. You know they exist, so you look through the sources for evidence of them and if you find it you try and interpret it ...".

This is SJW political sneaky tactic nonsense and I strongly recommend we abstain from this.

Assumptions are made in most areas of inquiry. Personally, I don't think I'm shaving too close with Occam's razor to assume that women and people of color existed. One could assume they sprang fully formed from the head of Zeus but I like my assumption better. Total undocumented bias on my part, I admit.
As for interpreting found evidence, isn't that what we do every day on here? We point out the logical fallacies and incongruities and assume we're being told tall tales. We KNOW the official narrative can't be correct so we try to look at what we have and INTERPRET it into a narrative that makes more sense to us.
Yes, there is such a thing as NLP and techniques used to steer conversations (and ideas) in a particular direction but labeling others who don't think like you do IS a SJW technique. And, while I am by no means a liberal, I do speak out against injustice wherever I see it so I guess you could call me a SJW even though labels don't affect (or describe) me and I have no agenda.

My question for a historian would be: since the historical records only contain conflicting and incongruent information, how could we go about verifying or discounting the historical narrative with any accuracy?

 

[Huaqero]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Huaqero
Date: 2020-03-07 17:55:47
Reaction Score: 0

As for interpreting found evidence, isn't that what we do every day on here?

This is the reverse of "I know something exists, I search for evidence and I try to interpret it".

 

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Oisín
Date: 2020-03-07 19:40:35
Reaction Score: 5

I didn't say there weren't women. Also, I said British, as that is what I had understood to be the area you had been talking about. I was just making the context clearer. I absolutely wasn't disputing that there were black people in the past. I could no more do that, than say there were no white people. That (to me) would obviously be nonsense.

Brilliant, I'm glad we have cleared that up. I didn't mean British originally, but I can see why you might think I did. I'm delighted we're on the same page about this.

Fomenko portrays history in this way.

But the key term for me is 'portrayal'. His is a portrayal, and so are the mainstream narratives. Both are portraits or something - are any of them accurate? They are doors to the past, but who is the artist? And how much license did he use? For me, both are just interpretations, and not sources at all.

Fomenko is interesting as he expresses some logical flaws with the standard narrative - he and others illuminate inconsistencies. This is not to say the alternative interpretation is right, but they point out parts where the existing explanation fails. Any portrayals exert bias - they have to - that's not a problem. The problem is that most people are taught a narrative as if we know. There aren't any caveats in education. Its not a question of a bad teacher here or there, its that the narrative is presented as true, when it is at best a good guess, and at worst, intended to mislead.

I am not familiar with Fomenko's work so I won't comment on it. But you are right, all histories are sort of portrayals of the past. Some are more accurate than others, but no history can be entirely accurate. This is why when I teach I always stress the importance of reading as broadly as possible both in primary and secondary sources, my classes are basically all caveats. That is how I was taught history, and it is how my colleagues teach it. I would consider my module a failure if all of the students came out spouting the same ideas that came from one text or author. Reading widely is important because it allows a person to assess texts more critically: If author A is saying something very different to authors B and C, what evidence is A offering to support their new view and what evidence to show that B and C's view is wrong? Has A properly understood B and C's model? Is A using their sources better than B and C did or is A using new or more appropriate sources? At our uni, and the other ones I have taught at, the focus is not on teaching students facts, but teaching them how to find and assess sources critically (both primary and secondary).

I'm talking about your methodology. You said:

For me, you are viewing history through a modern lens. I don't think those people themselves would have seen the world on the terms you describe. You may disagree but we cannot know as we weren't there. What we can say, is that you are filling in blanks in history that address the more modern outlook. As a historian you are empowered to create a narrative for these folks in history. For me, its just more narrative, it doesn't help me to really understand the past.

Once again I have misunderstood you. Sorry! I thought you were referencing Tin. Actually you are quite right about this. Some of the categories I mentioned are modern constructs and are not how people would have seen themselves at numerous points in the past. I was (lazily, I admit) using modern terms as a shorthand for a wide range of experiences, relationships, and identities.

I don't see how 'filling in' history in this way doesn't help us to understand the past, though. If you think of history as a portrait, as in the simile you used earlier, then until recently we have basically had a huge blank canvass with a painting of one straight white guy standing in the middle of it with a load of artists obsessing over it to make sure that the detail of his sword hilt and the lace around his collar was exactly right. What historians are doing now is filling in the rest of the group standing with him, and we are beginning to see the diversity of experience in historical societies. You are never going to be in the past, so you will never experience and 'know' about it in that very literal sense, but the work that is being done today is helping to create a far more detailed picture of the past with far fewer people left out of it.

I am not 'empowered' to create a narrative by virtue of being a historian. Being a historian IS the process of interpreting sources. The historian Michelle Foucault said that history 'is grey, meticulous, and patiently documentary,' and that is exactly it. The last paper I published was 8,000 words long and there was a footnote, on average, every 60 words. They linked to 111 different sources (about 85% of which were primary). I drew my conclusions based on my reading over 1,500 primary sources and well over 100 secondary sources. It took over a year to compile the research for it and, at the outset, I had no idea what I would find or what kind of interpretations I would draw. It is, if I say so myself, the closest representation of penal reform activism in 1970s Ireland to date. But in spite of being focused on such a short period and such a relatively small community, and in spite of being so detailed and heavily sourced, I know it isn't perfect. That's why I'm working on a book about the period. But I know that when I publish that it won't be a perfect representation either. What I am trying to say, in my longwinded way, is that historians do not pull narratives out of the air, doing history is a patient process of interpreting and reinterpreting a vast amount of evidence in the most accurate way you can. Nor is any history the correct one, each historian presents what they think is the best interpretation of the sources and it is up to the reader to make up their mind which interpretation fits best.

No. I have to proceed with imperfect information. Often I accept the standard narrative, but try to maintain consciousness over the assumptions that that narrative makes. I don't conduct my own research in the way you think - I'm more interested in observing the inconsistencies that are expressed in the various sources we have.

That's a good stance to take. It is important to be aware of the assumptions that underpin whatever you are reading, and also that, like myself, as readers of modern English (do correct me if you have other languages) we only have access to a tiny fraction of the sources out there. Once things have quietened down on this thread I will take a look around the forum and see what sort of inconsistencies there are in the sources.

Who TPTB are, is a good question. Honestly, I don't know. However, I do know that much of what we believe to be real is far different to what is presented as true in school. Additionally, money talks. If you control the purse strings, it is not as hard as you may think to fund one line of thinking over another, whether that is science, politics, history, medicine, education, etc. These are all heirarchical organisations. Of course, some people may be naturally aligned with the line that is promoted by TPTB, but really after whatever number of years steeped in educational narratives that are promoted by a ruling elite, it probably feels perfectly natural to continue with those narratives.

BTW, to give you an idea of what I consider acceptable narratives and the Overton window, you may consider that a socialist (a la Bernie/Corbyn) viewpoint is anti-authoritarian - I do not. For me the entire breadth of the political discourse is managed.

Thanks for filling me in. I agree with aspects of what you are saying and disagree with other bits, but it is probably too much to get into this late in the response.

In your example, you are assuming prisoners.

True, I was assuming prisoners, but not without good cause. Even before I formulated the question I had met people who had been in prison in this period, I had listened to oral history recordings of people speaking about their time inside, I had read books and articles that made reference to incarceration in the period, and I have very clear memories, of my own, of people being sent down in the 1990s, only a few years later than the period in question and prison certainly wasn't new at that point. In the interests of brevity I left out that in most cases those questions grow organically out of previous research or other experiences.

I think my response is already far too long so I am going to stop here. Thanks a million for taking the time to respond in such detail. This is a really interesting conversation and I do genuinely appreciate the time and thought you have put into responding.

 

[feralimal]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Feralimal
Date: 2020-03-07 20:01:55
Reaction Score: 6

This is a really interesting conversation and I do genuinely appreciate the time and thought you have put into responding.

It is an interesting conversation. And I too thank you for your detailed responses and time! I also admire your effort to understand and respond to the people on this forum. I think some of the work that is expressed on this site is inspired and compotent enough that it should be engaged with by official historians, so I'm glad that it's happening. I'm looking forward to seeing more of your responses to KD, Mabzynn, etc.

 

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Oisín
Date: 2020-03-07 21:30:30
Reaction Score: 5

I suspect you're missing the reason for so much of the antagonism and hostility directed at you. Kudos for hanging in there.
In our research on this site we've discovered that many documents originate from the 1800's, maybe a little earlier. They all seem to reference earlier documents from which they were COPIED. There's a suspicious dearth of original documents that we're certain , and for which we have evidence, dating back further than 200-300 years ago.
Since all of our current history is based on these recent documents, many believe our historical narrative was completely fabricated in the 200-300 year timeframe mentioned.

Hi Whitewave,
Thanks a million for this. It explains so much about what I have been asked over the last few days.

 

[KD Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2020-03-08 00:15:27
Reaction Score: 11

That said, for the full history and the available evidence, I'd suggest reading the Dublin Institute of Advanced Studies' Meamram Páipéar Ríomhaire entry: Irish Script On Screen - Meamram Páipéar Ríomhaire

No straight answer? You are the one who brought up The Book of Ballymote. I figured that if you use it as a point of reference, and given your credentials and background, you would either know, or have an easy way to find out. Currently it appears that you are taking at face value something you have not personally verified. Naturally, you are that professional historian who should know that he is working with authentic documents. Don’t send me to some library please. Simply answer the following questions:

• Do you know which documents establish the history of The Book of Ballymote between 1391 and 1724? A simple yes or no will suffice.
• How come you are not wondering why Noah has a crown on his head? Wouldn't it be important to find out?

Did he do this for all of the over 2000 rare books and manuscripts in his collection? He must have been very busy, or have had an army of writers, artists, and forgers working for him.

Really? What do 2,000 books or manuscripts from his collection have to do with a specific history defining manuscript you referenced?

If you want to have a serious conversation, you need to start addressing matters at hand. And the matter at hand says that we have 2.5 sources including Geoffry de Villehardouin to reference one of the most controversial events in history. World disposition changed quite drastically between 1215 - c.1614. New victors came to power, and those do like to write their own history. Simultaneously you do not know where to verify 400 years of this document's existence, and appear to not care. If you did know, you would have answered my question.

Hang on a second. You are proposing, without any 'cross reference data', that a 17th century publisher who printed books, composed a detailed history of a medieval war in fluent Old French (a language that hadn't been spoken for 300 years) then found someone to transcribe it in immaculate medieval book hand (a style which had changed subtly, but noticeably, since the 14th century), and added illustrations and embellishments in a medieval style (obsolete by the 17th century).

Hmm, this is where the issue with history as a discipline is. Those teaching it, simply repeat what they were taught themselves. Taught by somebody who did not bother to cross reference either. While it does amaze me that you do not want to personally verify the history of this "The Conquest of Constantinople" manuscript, I am more surprised to see that you apparently see nothing weird about the Fourth Crusade itself. Because if you analyzed the documented events, and cross examined with other contemporary documented events, you would be like, "Which author is lying?" Who cares really that dudes were going to Jerusalem but ended up sacking the Christian city of Constantinople.

• Was the Fourth crusade the First one? Was Babylon located in Cairo?

Back to the manuscript authenticity. I am not sure which one of this two you find hard to believe:

• 1. Does it really surprise you that throughout periods of time powers that be were introducing adjusted narrative supporting information?
• 2. Do you question their ability to produce a quality fake in proper language?

#1 I am not even going to address.

As far as #2 goes... Is there a school teaching you guys this excuse? This is far from the first time I hear that "Exhibit A" cannot be fake, because it is written in "Language X", and “Language X” was not spoken for "Y" years at the time when "Exhibit A" was discovered in some year "Z". So what?

• Are you saying that today, in 2020, you do know what a fluent Old French looks like, but professional scribes in 1600s did not?
• How would you even know the difference between a fluent Old French and a non-fluent Old French?
• Even today, in 2020, it is not impossible to find an expert to put a document together.

The work force of scribes available around the 15th-17th centuries is well documented by the narrative. Being a professional in the field of history, you are most likely aware that medieval manuscript forgery was a booming business. Allegedly of course it was.

• SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals
• Those crafty medieval monks - forging their way through history!
• Things Aren't What They Seem: Forgeries and Deceptions from the UD Collections
• Illuminating manuscript treasures
• Greek manuscripts in the 16th century

And how do you guys pull things like this off? Immaculate precision...

• Old French was a language spoken from approximately 842 to 1339, when it became Middle French.
  • So they stopped speaking it in 1339, and switched to Middle French when?
• Middle French is a historical division of the French language, spoken roughly from 1340 to 1610.

There are a lot of documents which were considered to be authentic, until they were not. For example: Bible Museum's Dead Sea Scrolls 'are fake'. At the time when these were considered authentic, some expert was probably saying that scrolls were written in a fluent ancient paleo-Hebrew, and therefore could not be forged. Famous forgeries are not hard to google out.

The flip side would be when a possible authentic document gets declared a forgery. I do not think there is a way to recover from that for such a document. These could also be of tremendous interest, for they can provide a vector for investigation.

---

KD: Not knowing everything is expected. It's impossible to know and remember everything. At the same time being able to reference, cross-reference and verify things should be a must. You will never see patterns unless you start looking.

As it stands our history is not really a history, but a narrative. That is in my opinion, of course.

Figuratively speaking, our history (pseudo history imho) consists of 50 available copies of the non-existent originals. These 50 figurative copies of non-existent originals were turned into hundreds of thousands of the so-called "scientific" works. Historians reference each other, and those who came before them, in the process adding fraudulent credibility to their "works."

Here is an example of references provided by you in the thread you currently choose to ignore. There are 54 referenced works all of which were published in the 20th century. This is ancient Egypt we are talking about. Where are the original sources of information? The answer is simple, there are none. Otherwise those sources would have been included, along with the information when those sources were discovered. These are opinions at best. Without ancient Egyptian sources such opinions are nothing but speculations.

• Stoneworking technology in Ancient Egypt

History vs. Narrative

I'm preaching to the quire here. Our history related scientific community does not appear to care for the origins of information. The establishment references each other, providing the appearance of credibility to get various doctoral dissertations approved.

I believe a true historian should always be asking one question when presented with a body of information. This question is:

• How do we know this or that? As in... where and when did this information really originate?

Imho, a historian not asking the above question is not a historian. He is a narrator of the narrative provided by other narrators.

• Is there a difference between being a PhD in history vs. a PhD in narrating the narrative? I believe there is.

Based on the contents of your answers, @Oisín, it appears that you do not care where everything you know comes from, and simply narrate the narrative. Blaming you for that would be wrong, because this is the way our education system operates. Stepping outside of the boundaries of this system would probably be a career ender.

 

[Felix Noille]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Felixnoille
Date: 2020-03-08 10:52:48
Reaction Score: 1

Could you clarify what you mean by truth? Lots of people on this forum are talking about truth, but I am not at all clear what you mean by it.

Ah right, the old 'philosophical side-step'.
Take your pick from here: What is True?

 

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Oisín
Date: 2020-03-08 11:00:18
Reaction Score: 0

Ah right, the old 'philosophical side-step'.
Take your pick from here: What is True?

It wasn't a side step, but thanks very much for the link, I will take a look when I can.

 

[Felix Noille]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Felixnoille
Date: 2020-03-08 11:17:48
Reaction Score: 1

I had met people who had been in prison in this period,

1850 - this period? Are you Doctor Who?

 

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Oisín
Date: 2020-03-08 12:01:49
Reaction Score: 1

No straight answer? You are the one who brought up The Book of Ballymote. I figured that if you use it as a point of reference, and given your credentials and background, you would either know, or have an easy way to find out. Currently it appears that you are taking at face value something you have not personally verified. Naturally, you are that professional historian who should know that he is working with authentic documents. Don’t send me to some library please. Simply answer the following questions:

• Do you know which documents establish the history of The Book of Ballymote between 1391 and 1724? A simple yes or no will suffice.
• How come you are not wondering why Noah has a crown on his head? Wouldn't it be important to find out?

Really? What do 2,000 books or manuscripts from his collection have to do with a specific history defining manuscript you referenced?

If you want to have a serious conversation, you need to start addressing matters at hand. And the matter at hand says that we have 2.5 sources including Geoffry de Villehardouin to reference one of the most controversial events in history. World disposition changed quite drastically between 1215 - c.1614. New victors came to power, and those do like to write their own history. Simultaneously you do not know where to verify 400 years of this document's existence, and appear to not care. If you did know, you would have answered my question.

Hmm, this is where the issue with history as a discipline is. Those teaching it, simply repeat what they were taught themselves. Taught by somebody who did not bother to cross reference either. While it does amaze me that you do not want to personally verify the history of this "The Conquest of Constantinople" manuscript, I am more surprised to see that you apparently see nothing weird about the Fourth Crusade itself. Because if you analyzed the documented events, and cross examined with other contemporary documented events, you would be like, "Which author is lying?" Who cares really that dudes were going to Jerusalem but ended up sacking the Christian city of Constantinople.

• Was the Fourth crusade the First one? Was Babylon located in Cairo?

Back to the manuscript authenticity. I am not sure which one of this two you find hard to believe:

• 1. Does it really surprise you that throughout periods of time powers that be were introducing adjusted narrative supporting information?
• 2. Do you question their ability to produce a quality fake in proper language?

#1 I am not even going to address.

As far as #2 goes... Is there a school teaching you guys this excuse? This is far from the first time I hear that "Exhibit A" cannot be fake, because it is written in "Language X", and “Language X” was not spoken for "Y" years at the time when "Exhibit A" was discovered in some year "Z". So what?

• Are you saying that today, in 2020, you do know what a fluent Old French looks like, but professional scribes in 1600s did not?
• How would you even know the difference between a fluent Old French and a non-fluent Old French?
• Even today, in 2020, it is not impossible to find an expert to put a document together.

The work force of scribes available around the 15th-17th centuries is well documented by the narrative. Being a professional in the field of history, you are most likely aware that medieval manuscript forgery was a booming business. Allegedly of course it was.

• SAGE Journals: Your gateway to world-class research journals
• Those crafty medieval monks - forging their way through history!
• Things Aren't What They Seem: Forgeries and Deceptions from the UD Collections
• Illuminating manuscript treasures
• Greek manuscripts in the 16th century

And how do you guys pull things like this off? Immaculate precision...

• Old French was a language spoken from approximately 842 to 1339, when it became Middle French.
  • So they stopped speaking it in 1339, and switched to Middle French when?
• Middle French is a historical division of the French language, spoken roughly from 1340 to 1610.

There are a lot of documents which were considered to be authentic, until they were not. For example: Bible Museum's Dead Sea Scrolls 'are fake'. At the time when these were considered authentic, some expert was probably saying that scrolls were written in a fluent ancient paleo-Hebrew, and therefore could not be forged. Famous forgeries are not hard to google out.

The flip side would be when a possible authentic document gets declared a forgery. I do not think there is a way to recover from that for such a document. These could also be of tremendous interest, for they can provide a vector for investigation.

---

KD: Not knowing everything is expected. It's impossible to know and remember everything. At the same time being able to reference, cross-reference and verify things should be a must. You will never see patterns unless you start looking.

As it stands our history is not really a history, but a narrative. That is in my opinion, of course.

View attachment 42229

Figuratively speaking, our history (pseudo history imho) consists of 50 available copies of the non-existent originals. These 50 figurative copies of non-existent originals were turned into hundreds of thousands of the so-called "scientific" works. Historians reference each other, and those who came before them, in the process adding fraudulent credibility to their "works."

Here is an example of references provided by you in the thread you currently choose to ignore. There are 54 referenced works all of which were published in the 20th century. This is ancient Egypt we are talking about. Where are the original sources of information? The answer is simple, there are none. Otherwise those sources would have been included, along with the information when those sources were discovered. These are opinions at best. Without ancient Egyptian sources such opinions are nothing but speculations.

• Stoneworking technology in Ancient Egypt

View attachment 42230

History vs. Narrative

I'm preaching to the quire here. Our history related scientific community does not appear to care for the origins of information. The establishment references each other, providing the appearance of credibility to get various doctoral dissertations approved.

I believe a true historian should always be asking one question when presented with a body of information. This question is:

• How do we know this or that? As in... where and when did this information really originate?

Imho, a historian not asking the above question is not a historian. He is a narrator of the narrative provided by other narrators.

• Is there a difference between being a PhD in history vs. a PhD in narrating the narrative? I believe there is.

Based on the contents of your answers, @Oisín, it appears that you do not care where everything you know comes from, and simply narrate the narrative. Blaming you for that would be wrong, because this is the way our education system operates. Stepping outside of the boundaries of this system would probably be a career ender.

Hi KorbenDallas,

This was a very straight answer. The linked page provides a textual and intertextual analysis which explains the history of the book. It details numerous annotations (colophons), some of which it cross references with other texts, which explain why book historians believe that it is the age that it is. And it uses numerous other textual references to it to establish its location at various points in time. I linked the page because I am not a medieval book historian, and wouldn’t be able to do justice to the meticulous work that the DIAS have done here. If you want to dispute something about the history of the text you can dispute their analysis.

Here, I think, we have come to the crux of our disagreement. If someone came to me and told me that they didn’t believe that there were prisoners in 1970s Ireland, and as proof showed me pictures of empty prisons Galway and Waterford, a quote from the Minister for Justice saying that there was ‘no prison problem in Ireland’, and a French newspaper article about how there was no crime in Ireland, I would struggle to take that person’s views seriously. All of those are real sources, but in the absence of contextualising information they are practically meaningless. Of course, there is no reason that this person should necessarily know the context (there is no shame in not knowing things), but I would expect them to refrain from wild speculation (like assuming there were no prisoners) until they did. The other side of that coin, is that I know I don’t have the expertise to evaluate the authenticity of a 14th Century Irish manuscript – I don’t read early-modern Irish script, my early-modern Irish and ecclesiastical Latin are practically non-existent, I am not aware of all the other sources from the period that still exist, and only have a rough idea of which archives I would find them in. This equally applies to the French manuscript. I would hazard a guess (do correct me if I’m wrong) that you are in the same position. That said, I know that if I want to find out about a something, and I am not willing to commit years of my life to learning the languages involved and traipsing back and forth between archives to examine and cross reference the original documents, I am going to have to rely on the people who have committed their lives to doing that (hence the link to DIAS). Perhaps this is something you accept as well, because in this post you did reference several secondary and tertiary sources.

Even still, I’m a bit confused by the links you provide to sources about forgeries. Three of these (excluding the two book reviews, which are just book reviews) identified forgeries using techniques (palaeography, linguistic analysis, pigment analysis, etc) that have been used to validate other medieval and classical manuscripts. So if you accept that they can identify forgeries, why would you not accept that they can also identify the real thing? Also, I’m not trying to be a dick, but it seems a bit hypocritical to say: ‘don’t send me to some library please’ and then later in the message link out to two separate libraries (the BL and UDL).

Really, what I am trying to say is that it going to be very difficult to continue this conversation until we can agree on what kind of evidence you are willing to accept.

1850 - this period? Are you Doctor Who?

Ha! No, I meant the 1970s and 1980s, that is the period I work on.

 

[KD Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2020-03-08 13:41:24
Reaction Score: 3

This was a very straight answer. The linked page provides a textual and intertextual analysis which explains the history of the book. It details numerous annotations (colophons), some of which it cross references with other texts, which explain why book historians believe that it is the age that it is. And it uses numerous other textual references to it to establish its location at various points in time. I linked the page because I am not a medieval book historian, and wouldn’t be able to do justice to the meticulous work that the DIAS have done here. If you want to dispute something about the history of the text you can dispute their analysis.

As far as this MS history goes, there is nothing but opinions of scholars in there. There is not a single reference to an independent/different historical document talking about this book during the questionable period of its existence that I can see. But I do see things like this:

• The name of the book connects it with Ballymote, in the present County of Sligo, the former seat of the Mac Donnchaid of Corann, under whose patronage the book would appear to have been written.
• The most important indication of the time of writing is the scribal colophon occurring p. 106:
  • ''Is e in Toirrdelbach Og sin mac Aeda as ri Connacht ag scribadh na codach sa do'n leabar a tig Tomaltaig mic Taidg mic Tomaltaig mic Muirghiusa mic Donnchaid mic Tomaltaigh mic Conchobhair mic Diarmata o fuiled Mic Dhiarmata a mBaili in Mhuta."
  • Toirrdelbach Og was the son of Aeda from Connaught, scraping off the portions in which Tomaltaig, son of Taidg, son of Tomaltig, son of Muirghius, son of Donnchadh, son of Conall, son of Conchobhar, son of Diarmata, came from the sons of Diarmaid of Bali in Muta.
• To this may be added the scribal colophon on p. 99
  • under the pedigree of Tomaltach mac Taidg mic Tomaltaig . . . mic Donnchaid . ... mic Diarmada: " Is e in Tomaltach sa ba righ ar Airteach 7 ar Thir Oilell 7 ar Dha Chorand 7 ar cúig baili Cloinni Fearmhuighi 7 ar Tír Tuathail ag scribadh in leabairsea.'' Since Toirrdelbach Óg Ó Conchobhair was King of Connacht in the years 1384-1406 (see note in Charles O'Conor's hand in the margin) and Tomaltach became chief of Tir Oilella in 1383 this portion of the manuscript must date from the late fourteenth century.
• The book would appear to have belonged to Mac Donnchaid, chief of Tir Oilella, till the year 1522, since we find a record in the manuscript stating that Mac Donnchaid sold it in that year to Aedh Óg Ó Domhnaill, with the consent of his family.
• p. 401, inf. marg. "Is beg an dith leam O Domnaill do buain an leabair-si dim, or is clu feamachuis dochuaidh air in leaphor.''
  • This would seem to have been written by Mac Donnchaid in 1522, before hé parted with the ms. to Ó Donnell.
• The book was lost sight of for a century after it came into the possession of the O'DonnelIs.
• An initialled and dated note standing in the ms., fo. 47 v, "B.N. 1633'' which lías been brought out by the use of a re-agent, reveals nothing.
• The next known record is a reference by Dubhaltach Mac Fir Bisig, writing in 1666 (O'Curry, Acad. Cat., fo. 762, verso), who states that the book was then in Dublin.
• In 1686 it was in the Library of Trinity College, Dublin (acc. to Catalogues D. 1. 6, D. 1. 7. See Gwynn, Catalogue of Irish MSS. in Trinity College, Dublin, Introd., p. xvii).
• There is no account in the records of Trinity College to show how the ms. came into the possession of the College, but it is probable that it came there (together with the Great Book of Lecan) among Ussher's mss.
• The ms. was lent to Dr. Raymond by the authorities of Trinity College without bond or security about 1720, after which it disappeared again.

It's funny how notes in the manuscript itself authenticate the said manuscript. Where is a single independent source talking about this book between 1391 and 1666?

This Dubhaltach Mac Fir Bisig's 1666 writing about the book being in Dublin could be considered a first independent account. But there we have this peculiar issue:

• The verifying source was an Irish scribe, and one of the last traditionally trained Irish Gaelic scholars.

Summary of the above:

• No records of The Book of Ballymote exist between 1391 and 1666.
• In 1666 an Irish scribe trained in Irish Gaelic created the very first independent record.
• I have nothing else to add here.

Here, I think, we have come to the crux of our disagreement. If someone came to me and told me that they didn’t believe that there were prisoners in 1970s Ireland, and as proof showed me pictures of empty prisons Galway and Waterford, a quote from the Minister for Justice saying that there was ‘no prison problem in Ireland’, and a French newspaper article about how there was no crime in Ireland, I would struggle to take that person’s views seriously. All of those are real sources, but in the absence of contextualising information they are practically meaningless. Of course, there is no reason that this person should necessarily know the context (there is no shame in not knowing things), but I would expect them to refrain from wild speculation (like assuming there were no prisoners) until they did. The other side of that coin, is that I know I don’t have the expertise to evaluate the authenticity of a 14th Century Irish manuscript – I don’t read early-modern Irish script, my early-modern Irish and ecclesiastical Latin are practically non-existent, I am not aware of all the other sources from the period that still exist, and only have a rough idea of which archives I would find them in. This equally applies to the French manuscript. I would hazard a guess (do correct me if I’m wrong) that you are in the same position. That said, I know that if I want to find out about a something, and I am not willing to commit years of my life to learning the languages involved and traipsing back and forth between archives to examine and cross reference the original documents, I am going to have to rely on the people who have committed their lives to doing that (hence the link to DIAS). Perhaps this is something you accept as well, because in this post you did reference several secondary and tertiary sources.

I can see where you are coming from with your 1970s prisons analogy. It works only on a case by case basis, when you analyze one item at a time. Every single individual case can be justified, and plausibly explained. But once you have to justify every single case you investigate, you run into the totality of circumstances:

• totality of the circumstances test refers to a method of analysis where decisions are based on all available information rather than one instance.

This is why I said in this post, "At the same time being able to reference, cross-reference and verify things should be a must. You will never see patterns unless you start looking."

@Oisín, because you do not care to personally verify, you are not capable to operate within the totality of circumstances. By taking somebody else's opinions over your own examination you will never see patterns. There are a lot of real weird patterns pertaining to history, but as long as you study the narrative and not history, you will never be able to see those patterns. Do you know any of the weird patterns I'm talking about?

As far as authentications based on expert opinions go, such authentications are good for collectors and narrative reciters. For historical authentication there would need to be independent contemporary sources verifying the existence of an object.

I have nothing to add forgerywise. The stuff is easily googlable.

 

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Oisín
Date: 2020-03-08 13:53:05
Reaction Score: 2

Really, what I am trying to say is that it going to be very difficult to continue this conversation until we can agree on what kind of evidence you are willing to accept.

I realise this question might be a bit vague, so here are a few questions that I think would enable us to move the discussion forward:

• What proof of age are you prepared to accept for a source?
• What proof of provenance are you prepared to accept for a source?
• Is there any condition under which you are willing to accept the word of a secondary source that a primary source says something, without having seen the primary source? (ie. A modern article says that a historical manuscript says X (properly referencing the correct archive call number and folio or page number), but the manuscript is in an archive in Paris so you can’t go and see it)
• Under what conditions are you willing to read a secondary source?

I do have other methodological questions, but for now these seem like the most pertinent ones.

I can see where you are coming from with your 1970s prisons analogy. It works only on a case by case basis, when you analyze one item at a time. Every single individual case can be justified, and plausibly explained. But once you have to justify every single case you investigate, you run into the totality of circumstances:

• totality of the circumstances test refers to a method of analysis where decisions are based on all available information rather than one instance.

Could you clarify what you mean by this?

 

[KD Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: KorbenDallas
Date: 2020-03-08 14:28:55
Reaction Score: 7

I think you are missing the point here, and it directly relates to the totality of circumstances which form a pattern. Any given document can be authentic even when confirmation of its history is missing. Things do get lost, or avoid being recorded, and its normal. But when you look into, let's say 100 instances, and they all exhibit the same trait, it becomes a pattern based on many instances. In this case you form your opinion based on many similar cases, and not just one. Here is a few examples for you. Let's talk about ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts, and ancient Roman busts. I am not that positive on the cut off date for ancient Greek busts yet, so I am not gonna include those.

Pattern #1: ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts

• originals did not survive
• copies discovered no earlier than 1400 AD
• copies are dated by historians to whatever they are pleased
• information on when copies were discovered is very hard to find for most cases

Pattern #2: ancient Roman busts

• discovered in the 19th and 20th centuries
• dated by historians to ancient times
• basis for busts identification is either non-existent, or speculative upon inspection
• information on when busts were discovered is very hard to find for most cases
• museums do not mention when busts were discovered

And unless you look at every single case as a part of a bigger picture (totality of circumstances), you will never see the above patterns. There are many more patterns out there.

Once single patterns start forming patterns of their own, it becomes obvious that there is something wrong with what you guys are teaching, for it is anything but history.

Historical establishment does not advertise this. Would you happen to know why? Unfortunately you would not know about these patterns because you do not verify for yourself.

 

[Archive]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Oisín
Date: 2020-03-08 16:00:04
Reaction Score: 1

Let's talk about ancient Greek and Roman manuscripts, and ancient Roman busts. I am not that positive on the cut off date for ancient Greek busts yet, so I am not gonna include those.

Hi KD,

I don’t think we should change the subject to Greek and Roman manuscripts or ancient Roman busts, because we will end up with the same problem. I will say that most manuscripts haven’t survived – political turmoil, wars, soil chemistry, weather conditions, etc. etc. – but that a handful have survived by sheer luck, while other texts have been transmitted through copying in Egypt etc. Then you’ll say something about the ‘pattern’ of them all being copies and discovered in the nineteenth and twentieth century. And I’ll say, yes, that’s because of a combination of imperial expansion, modern fetishization of the classical past, and the emergence of modern archaeology. And then we are back at the same point again. There is no moving forward until we can agree on answers to these questions:

What proof of age are you prepared to accept for a source?

• What proof of provenance are you prepared to accept for a source?
• Is there any condition under which you are willing to accept the word of a secondary source that a primary source says something, without having seen the primary source? (ie. A modern article says that a historical manuscript says X (properly referencing the correct archive call number and folio or page number), but the manuscript is in an archive in Paris so you can’t go and see it)
• Under what conditions are you willing to read a secondary source?

 

[Bunnyman]

Note: This post was recovered from the Sh.org archive.
Username: Bunnyman
Date: 2020-03-09 03:45:13
Reaction Score: 1

You only urge me to cut-n-paste and repeat as well:

To be honest @Oisin is responding to this tread by invitation from @KD and I appreciate that. However, it seems @Oisin did sign on to the forum in general before this request. Thus, @Oisin must have had reason to do so. Maybe, impartial curiosity, maybe he too feels our history as professed by main stream isn't all that kosher (or maybe it is) or some other reason. But in all instances it feels absurd to me that @Oisin as a self confessed "professional" Academic should assume, or be expected to assume, the role of defender of the general Academic world. Would it not rather be helpful for @Oisin to pitch-in on topics of his interest just like the rest of us?

And on a personal note I feel that contributing to alternative narrative of presumed historical f-actualities in light of the search for truth here requires inquisitive minds free from environmental pressures such as reputation, remuneration etc. The Academic world in general as it stands today has not eaten from that apple as yet. So I would be at a loss if we are looking towards the same Academic hallways that echo a distorted and often times ludicrous narrative for either answers or to try to extract confessions or professions that have been debunked in many treads here.