Dr. G. G. Coulton's Middle Ages I

Extract

How is it that Dr. Coulton, with all his learning and his vast stores of information, his years of historical study and patient accumulation of facts, cannot be accepted as a serious historian? The question crops up with every fresh book that Dr. Coulton issues; and it won’t do to say that the fault lies with Catholics. It is the author who is responsible for the verdict; not his critics. Dr. Coulton is one of the most devoted of investigators. His sincerity cannot be questioned, his earnest desire to establish the truth is as patent as his anxiety to think well of mankind. Not for an instant would we suspect Dr. Coulton of deliberate suppression of fact, of wilful tampering with texts, of carelessness in the verifying of references.

And yet with all that may justly be said in acknowledgement of Dr. Coulton’s industry and in praise of his zeal for truth, the question still remains: How is it that Dr. Coulton, Editor of Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, cannot be accepted as a serious historian, and cannot be trusted as a responsible guide to the history of the Middle Ages?