Unchanging historians

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33739, 11 January 1975, Page 9

Unchanging historians

Historians In the Middle Ages- By Smalley. Thames and Hudson. 198 pp. Index and 99 illustrations. Why bother writing histoiy if it offered no financial or professional rewards? The answer — to satisfy the longing of a family or institution for a chronicle of its own deeds And from this longing has arisen a vast academic industry. This handsomely produced book does not pretend to be a serious history of the origins of historiography in Europe. But it should awaken a lively general interest in a field normally the preserve of specialists. For medieval history was, essentially, propaganda.

Its biography sought to praise or condemn; its chronicles sought to justify or refute, and a religious motive was never far from the surface. Authors wrote on behalf of an institution or a fellowship; they had a personal interest in swaying people s opinions about the past. And they believed that what happened to men was important and ought to be remembered. “Despise the wor.d and its vanities” in the preacher became, in the scholar, “rescue them from oblivion.” Often the same man practised both, even at the same time. A moment’s reflection might suggest that historians have really changed very little in a thousand years.