History Department Workshop: Bad Sources? Imagined Histories of Medieval Europe

On Thursday, Oct 27, 4:00 PM, 151 Eggers Hall

Samantha Herrick will present a paper on:

Bad Sources? Imagined Histories of Medieval Europe

Abstract:
What can we learn about the past from sources long dismissed as worthless? Medieval legends recount a version of early Christian history starkly at odds with reality. They also repeat each other again and again. For these reasons, they have been branded as unreliable and unoriginal. But what happens if we take them seriously—not as sources for early Christian history, but as evidence of how medieval people constructed and used history? This talk explores the hidden value of these supposedly worthless sources.