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The Problem of Secondhand Knowledge

Most of the historical knowledge current among is not, however, derived from even secondary source such as Gibbon and similar authoritative writers, comes from the reading of textbooks, encyclopedia stories, dramas, and magazine articles. Popular manual and articles are commonly written by those who know little or nothing of the primary sources; they are consequently at least third hand, even when based upon the best secondary accounts. As a matter of fact, they usually patched together from older manuals and articles and may be four, five, or six removes from the original source of knowledge. It is well known that the oftener a report passes from mouth to mouth the less trustworthy and accurate does it tend to become. Unimportant details which appeal to the imagination will be magnified, while fundamental considerations are easily forgotten, if they happen be prosaic and commonplace. Historians, like other people, are sometimes fond of good stories and may be led astray by some false rumor which, once started into circulation, gets farther and farther from the truth with each repetition. For example, a distinguished historian of the Church, Cardinal Baronius, writing about 1600, made the statement, upon very insufficient evidence, that, as the year 1000 approached, the people of Europe generally believed that the world was about to come to an end. Robertson, a very popular Scotch historian of the eighteenth century, repeated the statement and went on to describe the terrible panic which seized upon sinful men as the awful year drew on. Succeeding writers, including some very distinguished ones, accepted and even elaborated Robertson's account. About thirty years ago, however, a French scholar pointed out that there was really no adequate basis for this strange tale. To the chroniclers of the time the year 1000 was clearly no more portentous than 997 or 1003. This story of the panic, which passed current as historical fact for some three hundred years, offers an excellent illustration of the danger of relying upon secondary sources. [note (1998): In this case historical revisionism has come full circle - there are now a number of historians who do think the year 1000 was of some cultural importance.]

This text is part of the Internet Medieval Source Book. The Sourcebook is a collection of public domain and copy-permitted texts related to medieval and Byzantine history.
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© Paul Halsall January 1998