Historical Events: Sewell's Features and Mapping Middle Ages

WHAT CONSTITUTES A HISTORICAL EVENT? Look at Sewell s features of a transformational historical event. How well do the breaks in your timeline fit these? How effectively do these breaks overlap with other contemporary cultural/socio- economic/political breaks (his idea of articulation into other spheres) Where will you get evidence?

BRACKET THE MIDDLE AGES What event marks the start of the Middle Ages? What event marks the end of the Middle Ages? How do you map the features of these events to the features of Sewell s event theory?

DIVIDING THE DISCIPLINE OF ACADEMIC HISTORY Social history Individual agency in history evidenced by large socio-economic trends Demographic shifts Labor practices Economic division Gender history Urban history Rural history Institutional history (including the church) Cultural history Patterns of change in broad cultural interaction evidenced in individual experience of the world Religious belief and/or practices Public ritual & ceremony History of ideas History and memory Identity formation High vs low culture (art & music) Media, popular culture and fashion

EVALUATING BIOGRAPHY AS HISTORICAL SOURCE 1. Describe the document 2. Summarize the document 3. Analyze the document Author Who is the author, and what do you know about them? Purpose What is the intention of the writer? Why are they writing? Corroboration & Context Where and when is this document placed in space and time? How close is the author to the things they describe (in space and time)? Are there other accounts and where do they fit? What kinds of tone, form, genre or imagery did the author employ? Are these choices important and if so, how? How does a different genre give you different information? Form & Tone Who is the intended audience? What kinds of assumptions does the author make about the audience? How does genre change your assumptions about audience? Audience

EVALUATING SECONDARY SOURCES When you find a scholarly article that helps you understand your topic, use the abstract and a quick skim of the article, explain why the article is authoritative. Consider: The author s publication history The author s main argument The historiography (the conversation in which the author is participating)

A UNIFIED THESIS STATEMENT Life of Saladin as a possible contribution to hadith, a living hadith as an example of how Muslims ought to be. Ibn Shaddad had already written a book of hadith and this was therefore an extension of that book in its examples of how to live. Constructed like a hadith, with From the tongues of reliable sources Life of Saladin as a text designed to validate Saladin s service to Islam and defend him from future criticism Ibn Shaddad covers every possible area of perceived weakness and explains it. By holding up the life of Saladin as an example of how Muslims ought to live, Ibn Shaddad crafted a living hadith that validated Saladin s political service to Islam.

HOW DO WE INTRODUCE 1000 YEARS OF HISTORY? When the anonymous author of Merida s Deeds of the Father s told the story of Bishop Masonalying to save the tunic of Eulalia, he presented a lie in service of the truth. He wasn t alone in that response. Saints lives in the Middle Ages offered patterns of good and bad behavior in protection of the saint s community, but the ways in which that good or bad behavior was expressed changed Too detailed Eusebius, Venantius Fortunatus, Gregory of Tours, Einhard, Saladin, Peter Damian, Hildegard of Bingen and Petrarch each wrote about saints to illustrate good and bad behaior. For Eusebus, Constantine s imperial behavior was saintly. Venantius Fortunatus wrote about Radegund s unselfish behavior as the needs of the medieval community that saint protected changed. Too general Since the beginning of time, saints have been important because they set an example for people to see good and bad behavior.