Skip to main content

IMC 2019: Sessions

Session 807: The Experience of Medieval History: News, Knowledge, Information, and Ignorance

Tuesday 2 July 2019, 16.30-18.00

Sponsor:Haskins Society / Centre for the Study of Historiography & Historical Culture, University of Aberystwyth
Organiser:Emily A. Winkler, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford / Department of History, University College London
Moderator/Chair:Michael Staunton, School of History, University College Dublin
Paper 807-aIgnorance in High Medieval Historiography
(Language: English)
Emily A. Winkler, St Edmund Hall, University of Oxford / Department of History, University College London
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities, Philosophy
Paper 807-bNews Letters, Current Events, and Historical Mentalities, c. 1200
(Language: English)
Helen Birkett, Department of History, University of Exeter
Index terms: Crusades, Historiography - Medieval, Manuscripts and Palaeography, Mentalities
Paper 807-cWhat Did People Know about History (and What Did They Want to Know about It)?: The Experience of the Past in 13th-Century England
(Language: English)
Björn Weiler, Department of History & Welsh History, Aberystwyth University
Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Mentalities
Abstract

This medieval historiography panel is about knowledge, news, information and ignorance - both 1) as they are written about by medieval writers in the past, and 2) as they apply to writers' own experience. All papers examine the relationship between writing and experience in the High Middle Ages. Panelists will explore the ways in which historical consciousness a part of writing about contemporary history or current events. They also ask how and why certain writers sought-some very assiduously-to recreate a present quality even in writing about the remote past.