UNIT 8

E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

UNIT 8: HISTORICAL SOURCES

I. VOCABULARY-FOCUSED INPUT

Activity 8.1 Pronounce correctly:

Archive [ˊaːkaiv], archival [ˊaːkaivl], sources [ˊsͻːsiz], primary [ˊpraimǝri], secondary [ˊsekǝndǝri], tertiary [ˊtǝːʃǝri], autobiographical [ˊᴐːtǝʊˎbaiǝʊˊgræfikl], manuscript [ˊmænjʊskript], diary [ˊdaiǝri], memoirs [ˊmemwaːz], decrees [ˎdikˊriːz], edicts [ˊiːdikts], legal [ˊliːgl] proceedings [prǝˊsiːdiŋz], census [ˊsensǝs].

Scandinavia [ˎskændiˊneiviə], Norway [ˊnᴐːwei], Norwegian [nᴐːˊwiːdʒәn], Denmark [ˊdenmaːk], Danish [ˊdeiniʃ], Sweden [ˊswiːdən], Swedish [ˊswediʃ], the Byzantine [ˊbizәntain] Empire [ˊempaiə], Germanic [dʒəːˊmænik] world.

Activity 8.2 Translate into Russian:

historical sources, ninth-century sources

relevant primary sources, narrative sources, literary sources, foreign sources government sources, archival sources, documentary sources, autobiographical sources manuscript and printed sources

(an) edition of sources

(a) variety of diverse sources contemporary sources, original sources

(a) lack of reliable sources, unreliable sources available sources, surviving sources, extant sources limited/scant/scattered sources, identify/evaluate/reassess/cite sources

official statements royal decrees church edicts official records official statistics census data property deeds

transcripts of legal proceedings

invade, invaders, invasion dominate, domination cleric(s), clergy, clerical script, inscriptions carvings, rock carvings clan, kin, kindred

tribe, tribal excavate, excavations fortified camps tombs

(the) degree of rural colonization living conditions

settle, settlements

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

findings, evidence

reveal, denote, indicate, suggest

Activity 8.3 Studying topic related terminology

Read the definitions and explain the use of articles with the nouns in italics. What types of sources do you use in your written history assignments?

primary sources (also called original/historical sources or evidence) are artefacts, documents, recordings, or other sources of information that come directly from a historical actor and should be broadly ‘contemporary’ with what is studied. For example, if the historian is studying some aspect of the life of medieval monks, his or her primary sources must include things actually written in medieval times which give information about monks. Even if what these texts say is unreliable and obscure, they are still the primary sources because they come closest to the object of study. Things written in later centuries about medieval monks cannot count as primary sources.

written primary sources include personal documents, such as letters and diaries, and published works, such as memoirs and newspaper articles. Official statements such as royal decrees, church edicts, and political party platforms are considered primary sources, as are official records and statistics such as marriage, birth, and death statistics, census data, property deeds, contracts, and transcripts of legal proceedings.

non-written primary sources include maps, illustrations, photographs, audiotapes, and videos. Artefacts are another type of non-written primary sources. They are things made and used by people in the past: houses, public buildings, tools, clothing, and much more. secondary sources are documents written on the basis of primary sources. They cite, comment on, or build upon primary sources. For example, works of scholarship (monographs, dissertations, scholarly articles), based on the research that uses primary sources, are themselves secondary. “Primary” and “secondary” are relative terms and the distinction is actually blurred. However, in scholarly writing, an important objective of classifying sources is to determine their independence and reliability. In contexts such as historical writing, it is almost always advisable to use primary sources if possible.

tertiary sources - documents written on the basis of secondary sources.

II. FOCUS ON READING

Activity 8.4 Read the text below about the historical sources concerning the Vikings and think of their possible classification:

The term ‘Viking’ only became common currency in the nineteenth century. There is some dispute about the origin of the word. It may derive from the Old Norse vik (bay) or the Latin vicus (town), whose Germanic equivalent is wik. The term is found as early as the seventh century, in an Anglo-Saxon context, in connection with maritime activities, especially piracy, and it is this meaning that became more general later - in other words, the Vikings are first thought of as pirates. The same word was also used, more broadly, to denote all the Scandinavians who conducted expeditions to Western Europe between the eighth and eleventh centuries.

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

The Vikings only became well known from the point at which they came into contact with westerners, who used writing. For the previous period, it is necessary to refer to other sources, all of them problematic.

The written sources concerning the Scandinavians during the period of the 'invasions' almost all come from outside Scandinavia. Those from the Christian West are written in Latin by clerics. There are also sources in Arabic, from the Muslim world, and in Greek, from the Byzantine Empire, but they mainly deal with the East. These sources have the advantage of being contemporary with the Viking migration, but they have one major disadvantage: they express a point of view that is clearly hostile to the 'invaders'.

The oldest written sources from the Viking world itself are runic inscriptions. This system of writing appeared in the Germanic world in about the first century AD, probably in imitation of Latin script, and spread throughout Scandinavia, where it was used until the fourteenth century. Runic inscriptions are carved on stone, wood or bone. They have given us a great deal of information about everyday life in Scandinavia and about some of the Viking expeditions.

Another historical source is Scandinavian literature. The earliest examples are the poems written by skalds, court poets who, like Celtic bards or African griots, were given the task of praising the great deeds of those who protected them and their ancestors. These skaldic poems derive originally from oral literature and present historians with immense problems of interpretation. A similar observation can be made about another source, the sagas.

The sagas were also transmitted orally before being written down, starting in the twelfth century, and especially in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (mostly from 1150 to 1350).

While it is undeniable that the sagas are works of great quality, many of them genuine masterpieces, the fact that they were written so long after the events they depict has aroused suspicion in historians, who have questioned whether they can truly be considered historical documents. In many cases they seem to have more to do with legend than with history. Moreover, the authors of the sagas were men of their time, and the principal aim of their stories was to sing the praises of a particular family or clan of the period at which they were writing. The sagas tell us more about the period during which they were written than the period, centuries earlier, which they were supposedly describing.

The most fruitful source remains archaeology, which continues to provide us with new information. The tombs of the Viking period have yielded much material, and in particular the ships discovered in Norway. Other ships from the end of the Viking age, the eleventh century, have been found in Denmark. These have been extensively studied and the reconstructions of Viking ships have provided us with a great deal of information. In addition, many trading centres have been excavated, and a remarkable series of fortified camps has been studied, all of them located in Denmark. More recently, archaeologists have taken an interest in purely rural sites and by putting together the information gained from excavations and the written sources, have been able to study shifts in population and living conditions over a long period, from the third to the twelfth centuries.

A second kind of source, place-names, should also be taken into consideration. In the absence of other reliable sources, much emphasis has been placed on this kind of study as a means of estimating the density of Scandinavian settlement in particular areas, especially in England and in Normandy. These findings should, however, be treated with caution. Place-names based on the names of people may show that an area was under Scandinavian domination, but not necessarily that there were many Scandinavians living there. In this respect, it is interesting to look more closely at the

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

names of smaller, more defined areas, which may give a better idea of the degree of rural colonization. But it is not easy to distinguish purely Scandinavian place-names from Saxon place-names - reminders of a previous wave of occupation. In addition, in Normandy's case, there were sometimes mixed settlements that could be called AngloScandinavian. Like the literary sources, both place-names and personal names reveal the emergence of a common language, which seems to have been a vital link between all Scandinavians.

(Neveux, 2008, pp. 7-10)

III. VOCABULARY-FOCUSED READING OUTPUT

Activity 8.5 Study the following words and expressions from the text:

become common currency derive from

origin, originate, original, originally maritime activities

conduct expeditions refer to, reference

hostile, hostility, hostilities carve

praise the great deeds observe, observation be transmitted orally deny, undeniable arouse suspicion

question (e.g. the reliability of sources) consider, be considered, take into consideration suppose, supposition, supposedly

yield (results) extensive, extensively remark, remarkable emphasis, emphasise estimate, assess, evaluate

estimate the density of settlement treat with caution

distinguish (from)

previous wave of occupation emerge, emergence

emergence of a common language

Activity 8.6 Find suitable synonyms to the following words:

extant

denote

conduct

describe

distinguish (from)

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

Activity 8.7 Complete the table. Use a dictionary if necessary.

термин

означать, обозначать, показывать, служить признаком, указывать (на)*

современные источники

наблюдение, замечание, высказывание

передаваться «из уст в уста»/устно

изображать, описывать, обрисовывать*

приносить (результаты), давать

производить раскопки

надежные источники

сохранившиеся источники

повествовательные источники

архивные и опубликованные источники

согласно данным источников

критически оценивать данные источников

подходить (к вопросу) с осторожностью

предположительно*

отличать, различать

открывать, обнаруживать, раскрывать*

сельский, деревенский

рунические надписи

IV. FLUENCY DEVELOPMENT

Activity 8.9 Discuss with a partner or/and in a group:

a)What are primary and secondary sources?

b)How do historians use sources?

c)Do primary sources provide excess to the past?

d)What are the main historical sources concerning the Vikings?

e)How can these sources be categorised?

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

f)Why do you think the use of literary sources can be problematic?

g)What evidence concerning the Vikings can be derived from archaeological sources?

Activity 8.10 Render into English:

Происхождение термина «викинг» до конца не выяснено. Возможно, слово происходит от «вик» - бухта, порт, где базировались участники морских походов, но предлагались и другие объяснения. Первые упоминания нападений викингов восходят к концу VIII века, а период IXXI веков вошел в историю под названием «эпохи викингов».

Важными источниками, из которых можно было бы почерпнуть представления о жизни викингов, являются памятники скандинавского эпоса и литературы, относящиеся, однако, к более позднему, чем «эпоха викингов», времени. Так, песни о богах и героях, известные под названием «Старшей Эдды» (the Elder Edda), как и большинство исландских саг, дошли до нас в записи XIII в. В качестве исторических источников используются также краткие рунические надписи, вырезанные на камнях, оружии, дереве. Текст их, однако, во многих случаях неясен. Важный материал дает изучение форм и характера погребений. Наконец, существуют произведения искусства – изображения, орнаменты, украшения, ремесленные изделия. Их происхождение и датировка подчас являются спорными, но тем не менее они также могут быть использованы при изучении жизни скандинавов «эпохи викингов».

V. FOCUS ON LEARNING ACADEMIC VOCUBULARY:

(i)historical sources

Activity 8.11 Study the table below showing some lexico-grammatical patterns in which the word sources most commonly occur in history texts and make up a few sentences of your own.

… sources + prepositional phrase + verb

For example: Contemporary sources from Scandinavia illustrate the Vikings’ raids.

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

Activity 8.12 Translate the following sentences into Russian. Use a dictionary if necessary.

a) A few narrative sources for the tenth and eleventh centuries tell us of a monarch feasting at the hall of one of his subjects (lay or ecclesiastical); but it is never presented as an obligation, always as a free invitation. b) The edition of sources related to the constitutional crisis of 1297 provides some figures on the interest charged on the royal loans. c) South Italian sources covering the eleventh through to the early thirteenth centuries do not at first glance reveal much trace of an Iberian presence in their lands. d) The many sources that illuminate this topic, which range from medical handbooks and legal treatises to chronicles and official and private letters, were of course written to serve different purposes. e) The scanty sources of the fourth century - as we shall see in more detail further on - show clearly that the identity of the citizens of the newly founded Messenian polity was the object of a fierce dispute. f) The available sources such as correspondence suggest concord between Trotskii and the Politburo. g) In general, the sources suggest that archaic Megara remained oligarchic for much of the fifth and fourth centuries. h) Sometimes, indeed, it is not possible to recover the required information from the sources, either where the documentation is incomplete or when those involved have done too good a job of covering their tracks. i) Through these historical sources we can explore multiple aspects of both marginal and mainstream behaviours.

(ii)derive from, come from, originate from/build upon, draw on, be based on

a) Table 1 demonstrates the findings derived from archaeological analysis. b) The text basically derived from Greek sources as was the view of late nineteenthand early twentieth-century scholars. c) The major problem with the treatment of medieval interest rates in the works mentioned above is that all of the examples that they cite are taken from secondary sources, including a large number drawn from the chapter on public credit in the third volume of the Cambridge Economic History of Europe, written by Edmund and Michael Fryde, published in 1953. Moreover, Frydes’ examples themselves are mostly derived from other secondary works. d) Chadwick contends that all four of these annals originate from a Celtic written source that was much fuller than the surviving accounts. e) This paper originates from a talk given in different forms at the Institute of Classical Studies of the University of London and at the Department of the Classics of Harvard University in 1999. f) Today, historians throughout the world have better access to traditional regional historiographical traditions and can draw on a vast amount of modern scholarship. g) There can be no doubt that Xenophon drew on his knowledge of Sparta and Agesilaus when writing about Persia and Cyrus in the Cyropaedia. h) Bede builds upon the earlier account of the same episode in the anonymous Life of Cuthbert, which speaks of the plague depopulating many regions. i) The paper argues that Dutch neo-Calvinist protestants from the 1930s built on Calvin: with acknowledgment of temporal distance, but

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

based on the same Calvinist principles. j) The study is based on an impressive range of primary sources and relevant research literature.

VI. FOCUS ON LANGUAGE: the Passive Voice

Activity 8.14 Study the tables below and identify the forms of the verbs in bold in sentences (a-i). Explain the pragmatics of using these forms.

a) The term is found as early as the seventh century. b) The system was used until the fourteenth century. c) Runic inscriptions are carved on stone, wood or bone. d) A similar observation can be made about another source, the sagas. e) The sagas were also transmitted orally before being written down, starting in the twelfth century. f) The ships have been extensively studied. g) Many trading centres have been excavated, and a remarkable series of fortified camps has been studied. h) A second kind of source, placenames, should also be taken into consideration.

i) In the pit each stratum of bodies was covered with a thick layer of clayey soil, ‘probably an attempt to ward off infection, and although some care had been taken to arrange the bodies in the traditional east-west alignment, others had been packed around the edges and were lying in positions that suggested having been tipped into the pit, perhaps from a cart.

VII. OPTIONAL READING

Activity 8.15 Read the text about early modern English diaries and diarists and summarise the main characteristics of this type of historical source. What methodological cautions should be observed when using diaries as a source?

The diary is an immensely useful source for historians. As a record of specific events, an indicator of attitudes towards social, economic and religious trends, or simply acting as that connecting voice to the past, diaries have been described as the re-creation of a past age and, perhaps, the richest source of detail: not only in the major historical events and personalities they depict, but in their social background of manners and morals, contemporary tastes and fashions in recreation and dress. Yet there are some drawbacks to using diaries as historical source material. The main cause for concern is

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

that the people who kept diaries tended to come from the more prosperous, and obviously literate, sections of society. Given the high rate of illiteracy in early modern society, especially among the lower, labouring, sections of society, it can be argued that placing emphasis upon diaries limits the historical evidence to a small, rather privileged proportion of the population.

Another concern for those undertaking research into early modern diaries is the possible unreliability of the source in terms of its factual accuracy. During the early modern period diaries were a developing genre and were not always the essentially private or spontaneous daily records which might be assumed. Diaries of this period were often not intended to record everyday domestic detail. Some were written as spiritual exercises by those who wished to record their religious journey and keep an account of their virtues and failings to prepare themselves for divine judgement. Some, such as the famous diaries kept by Samuel Pepys and John Evelyn, were elaborate and detailed accounts of daily life but were written up from previously existing, presumably sparser and more immediate, memoranda.

Although diaries are subject to criticism, their value as a source for social history is indispensable. The number of English diaries kept during the period 1500–1700 is significant enough to warrant their exclusive examination. As historical source material diaries must be treated with some degree of caution, but there are, overall, clear advantages in their use. Primarily, the diary breaks history down to the level of the individual. It is the record of everyday living. Here are the voices of at least hundreds of people, and not only the authors’, but also in the background are their wives, or husbands, servants, friends and neighbours. In the context of social history the contents of the majority of diaries extended beyond the events, thoughts and spirituality of the individual author and give information on the society in which that individual lived. Diarists did not always confine their writing to the events of their own lives but also tended to include events which concerned the people whom they encountered during their day, and the current affairs which affected their local community and the nation as a whole. This means that historians can use diaries as a general social source to gain information on wider social trends such as the development of political thought among at least a proportion of the populace, and how people at grass-roots level reacted to the major events which affected society such as war, economic deprivation or prosperity, the succession of monarchs, and decisions on social and religious policies made by government. The diaries may have been ego-documents, personal notations of individual lives, but these texts also tended to document the current beliefs, opinions and events of the wider society.

The diaries themselves were created in a range of formats. While some run into several volumes, others were kept for perhaps just one year in one notebook which could be small enough for one’s pocket. Yet all have the essential characteristics of a diary, in that they were daily accounts, personal versions of that author’s day to be written down and kept as a permanent record of that one individual’s life. The motivation for putting pen to paper varied and some diarists were more disciplined in keeping their daily record than others. Yet from the diaries historians are given an immeasurably valuable insight into life during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; the work, games, religion, relationships, sickness and general struggle of life.

(McKay, 2005, pp. 191-192)

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E.P. Khoch “English for studying history. Teaching materials for students of the history department”

VIII. OPTIONAL WRITING

Activity 8.16 Write an essay of at least 250 words discussing the topic:

As a historical source material diaries must be treated with some degree of caution.

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