A New Interpretation of History

Extract

History, as most people understand it, is the product of an intense effort to describe in an objective way and in rigorous chronological order events which have occurred in past time. Before the Renaissance the historian compiled traditions, chronicles, and statements, with no concern to verify the correctness of his data; thus legend was mixed with truth in confused and picturesque narration. Now, however, the investigator, established as a judge of inquiry, begins research on a chosen subject within his competence by unleashing his critical judgment, rather like a hound on the trail of suppositions. He unearths documents and confronts them, weeding out the false from the authentic, subjects the most diverse witnesses to close comparison, and then with great patience, whether gifted or inept, he presents his thesis to the assembly of the learned. These, like a jury, either accept his conclusions, admit only a part of them, or reject them completely. Thus, from the time of the humanists who cleared the way up to the present day, an extraordinary legion of specialists, as patient as the ancient Benedictines are said to have been, have made efforts to clarify past events to establish the bases of an objective text of what has actually taken place. Hence the work of the great historian consisted in joining and fusing this labor into a homogeneous unit that would be the approximate reflection of the epoch under study.