Rhetoric in Medieval History - Essay Example

?Rhetoric in Medieval History Medieval History is a subset of history that focuses on events that took place roughly between the years 500 CE and 1500 CE, though particular dates used change depending on the region and subject being investigated. As a subset of history, studies in medieval history use many of the same techniques, priorities and knowledge making apparatuses as its parent branch of history, with some important minor variations and distinctions. This essay will use three articles, one from The Journal of Medieval History, one from History, and another from Speculum to draw out and synthesize rhetorical techniques commonly used in the writing of the field. These articles are “The Ministry of Gerold d’Avranches: warrior-saints and knightly piety on the eve of the First Crusade” by James MacGregor, which examines the use of violence in medieval Christianity, “The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New Synthesis,” by Paul Chevedden, which argues that Christians and Muslims tended to actually have a very similar idea of what the crusades were, and “The Leper in Medieval Islamic Society” by Michael Dols, which outlines the differences between the treatment of lepers in Medieval Christian and Medieval Islamic society. Based on these three articles, several features of the writing of Medieval history stand out. These features are: knowledge tends to be fairly specialized, with all authors having a general idea of the overall history of the middle ages but a much more intensive focus on a small part of that history, reliance on written primary sources, heavy use of conjecture to compensate for the paucity of written primary sources, and an odd mixture of clear and simple writing with little assumption of former knowledge and use of specialized writing, making this writing both accessible and inaccessible to a layman simultaneously. One of the first things that becomes apparent in studies of medieval history is that an incredibly accessible writing style, which assumes very little previous knowledge in the field, seems to be very highly regarded. For instance, even though one would assume that a basic overview of the process of the Norman Conquest of England, one of the defining features of Medieval History, would be known by anyone who would bother reading an academic article on the subject, James MacGregor opens his article by explaining that “after the Norman Conquest, William the Conqueror consolidated his authority over England by rewarding his companions with lands in his newly won kingdom” (MacGregor, 219). This structure is paralleled in Chevedden’s article, which explains the beginning of the First Crusade, a subject that most medievalists would probably not need explained (Chevedden, 183). These authors go even further than to explain the basic underpinnings of the history they are discussing, by for instance always ensuring that the identity of every person discussed is explained. When referring to “Ali, ibn Tahir al-Sulami,” Chevedden does not simply assume that anyone who would be reading his article would know that person because they were important in the field of medieval history, but explains that he was “a legal scholar and preacher at the great Mosque of Damascus […] six years after the conquest of Jerusalem in 1099” (Chevedden, 184). Likewise, Dols in his article on Leprosy in Islam explains details about individuals who suffered from the disease, where they were placed in their society, and what their role was in history (Dols, 892). Medievalists seem to go to great lengths to avoid assuming prior knowledge on the part of their readers about specifics of the history they discuss. They outline major events, names and places before going on to deeper analysis, which makes their writing incredibly accessible. This is probably done because Medieval History is such a wide-spread and diverse field, covering many different nations and time periods, so even experts might not have details on another expert’s area of expertise. Another common feature of writing of Medieval History that makes it accessible to laymen is a strongly narrative approach. This type of history writing is used in all three articles, but is best demonstrated by MacGregor’s article on warrior saints. In this article he seems to tell a story, beginning with the Norman Conquest and the giving of lands (MacGregor, 219), progressing to the efforts of Gerold, a priest (220), and then continuing with later histories and the recording of Gerold’s activities. While all three articles have heavy theoretical elements and deal with complex history, they ensure that as m any points as possible are dealt with in a narrative framework. This makes the writing very accessible, because virtually all of the media consumed by people popularly functions in a narrative framework, from movies and TV shows to novels. People’s brains are built to understand a narrative structure, and we have a lot of experience with it, so the heavy use of it in Medieval Studies writing, combined with the fact that writers assume little to no previous knowledge, all leads to a very accessible and open field of knowledge. While many aspects of the writing of medieval history seem to be incredibly accessible, requiring no prior knowledge and emphasizing clear, simple narrative writing as much as possible, there are also aspects of the writing that are relatively inaccessible. One of the major ones is the requirement of particular language skills beyond the language that the papers are written in (in the case of all three essays discussed here, English). While the writers go on to great pains to explain each individual and event in great detail, the simply leave it up to the reader to understand Latin and other languages. For instance, in the MacGregor article the author makes frequent reference to something called a “Laudes regiae,” which, according to Google translate is a Latin phrase meaning “praise of the king,” without ever stopping to tell the reader that is what is meant (225). Furthermore, MacGregor as well as the other authors refer to many sources that are available only in German or French, sometimes not even providing a translation for quotes in other languages, which leaves any reader without those language skills lost when trying to understand the references made (MacGregor 225, Chevedden 190, Dol 902). This shows that while no particular knowledge of any specific point in Medieval History is needed to be a medievalist, a wide array of language skills including at least Latin, French and German are assumed of anyone in the field, and is probably something that any student would have to work hard to perfect. Interestingly, it seems that even for fields within medieval history that would require other languages than French, German or English, that knowledge seems not to be assumed. Chevedden, for instance, translates phrases like “Kitab al-Jihad” into “The Book of War” for his readers. So while the writing of medieval history is widely accessible in many ways, the necessity of being able to understand second and third languages to be able to access the information limits that accessibility somewhat. Now that the writing style and format, and also the knowledge that it implies in the field of medieval studies has been discussed, it is important to look at the kind of evidence that writers in this field use. Unsurprisingly, like in most studies of history, the most important source by far is written primary sources composed around the time of the event in question, and these kinds of sources are used heavily by each writer. Also interestingly, many of these writers refer directly to the source in its original language, not to a translation, showing that on top of modern languages including at English, French and German that a scholar in medieval history seems to need to be able to have, these scholars also must have some ability in the medieval languages they study to refer to these primary sources. These authors also use specialized studies conducted by other historians on slightly different fields, or primary sources, to augment their knowledge or reference a topic they may not have space to explore fully in their own writing. They often have a section of the essay put entirely towards outlining the secondary sources that also touch on the topic they are discussing, to both outline the historiography and provide other sources or counter-points, usually in the opening pages of their discussion (E.g. Chevvedon 119 or Dol 891). So the construction of knowledge in medieval history is based only on primary written sources, and also based on the work of previous historians. This basis on these types of sources obviously leads to some bias – for most of history the vast majority of the population was illiterate, which means that medieval studies focuses disproportionately on the history of those who were able to record their own history, such as the clergy, royalty or nobles who could afford to have things written down. Furthermore, there is also a bias towards including only western sources: Chevedden talks frequently about how western writers “ignore” the Arabic sources of the crusades which are possibly much more accurate than the Western ones that are frequently studied (199). So the kind of knowledge that gets created in the field of medieval history is based heavily on written sources, academia, and biased towards western sources in western writing, and thus possibly provides a somewhat narrow view of the history. The final interesting aspect of writing on medieval history is the fact that the academics in the field tend to base much of their conclusions on conjecture, and recognize this by treating what they are saying in terms of probabilities and likelihoods rather than absolute truth or fact. The MacGregor article is a prime example of this – in it he constantly refers to probability of the truth, rather than claiming to have formed a definitive conclusion. He says it is “More like that tales were produced” to get converts, claims it is someone was “likely present when the abbot met King William” or says that it is “not unlikely that Gerold used the examples of Judas Maccabeus” when preaching about the crusades (MacGregor 223, 225, 227). In all he uses the term “likely” more than ten times, along with using synonyms such as probably on several occasions. So medieval historians are allowed to conjecture on what probably did happen, and recognize this ability by using soft language rather than trying to speak on facts. This willingness to conjecture, and to quite possibly be proven wrong if new evidence comes to light, is probably based on the fact that most of the evidence being studied in medieval history is at least five hundred, and often more like one thousand years old, and has been transcribed several times between its original production and a scholar using it. So with rare and possibly inaccurate evidence, anything other than conjecture would likely be foolishly overconfident. The writing of medieval history is characterized primarily by several things. The first is an incredibly accessible style of writing, expecting little prior knowledge, using a narrative format, but requiring multilingualism. The second is a form of knowledge creating that relies nearly entirely on written sources, and is thus subject to relatively extensive bias. The third is a willingness to use conjecture, and to even admit to conjecture, not trying to prove things too definitively but merely claim that something was likely or unlikely to be the case given the current evidence that we now possess. Works Cited Dols, Michael W. "The Leper in Medieval Islamic Society." Speculum 58.4 (1983): 891-916. Chevedden, Paul E. "The Islamic View and the Christian View of the Crusades: A New Synthesis." History 93.310 (2008): 181-200. MacGregor, J. "The Ministry of Gerold D'Avranches: Warrior-saints and Knightly Piety on the Eve of the First Crusade." Journal of Medieval History 29.3 (2003): 219-37 Read More