Grey Friars dig
Grey Friars dig
2012-09-22 16:17:12
marianziemke wrote:
"Reffering to the question "Popular/Unpopular", this is a very tricky "eye of the beholder" thing.//snip//we have only the views of those who put the words down...not a new thing...Coming up with an example that works very well I think: Nero.//snip//
Of course there are more essays that deal with him as a brutal murderer than those who praise him as a saviour, mostly because the normal folks didnýt write as much as the nobler classes.
Marion Z
That last phrase "...because the normal folks didn't write as much as the nobler classes." should, in my opinion, be placed above the desk , or computer, of anyone writing ANY historical work - fiction or non-fiction.
Almost all the sources we have for any period of history represent the views of the upper 5-10 per cent of the population; kings, nobles, religious figures, wealthy merchants, even the chroniclers were more representative of the upper than lower classes in that they could read and write. I am most definitely NOT saying that everything that was written bu or for this group is worthless, but rather that it may or may not represent either what actually DID occur and how the "people" felt about whatever had happened.
I've come to have an extremely cautious view concerning any reference to "what the people believe" concerning any event before the development of mass communications and even then I want sources for statements involving what "the people" believed or felt.
"Reffering to the question "Popular/Unpopular", this is a very tricky "eye of the beholder" thing.//snip//we have only the views of those who put the words down...not a new thing...Coming up with an example that works very well I think: Nero.//snip//
Of course there are more essays that deal with him as a brutal murderer than those who praise him as a saviour, mostly because the normal folks didnýt write as much as the nobler classes.
Marion Z
That last phrase "...because the normal folks didn't write as much as the nobler classes." should, in my opinion, be placed above the desk , or computer, of anyone writing ANY historical work - fiction or non-fiction.
Almost all the sources we have for any period of history represent the views of the upper 5-10 per cent of the population; kings, nobles, religious figures, wealthy merchants, even the chroniclers were more representative of the upper than lower classes in that they could read and write. I am most definitely NOT saying that everything that was written bu or for this group is worthless, but rather that it may or may not represent either what actually DID occur and how the "people" felt about whatever had happened.
I've come to have an extremely cautious view concerning any reference to "what the people believe" concerning any event before the development of mass communications and even then I want sources for statements involving what "the people" believed or felt.
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