Historicity v. History

Depends on what the story needs and whether or not I want to use some of my limited words to explain why I'm "wrong" in the eyes of the reader.

I prefer to use history over what's believed to be history if I can, but I'm not going to weigh down my story unnecessarily.

I think we have a different defintion of historicity here... my understanding of that word is linked to the practise of researching history... the term I would use for what you describe is apophrycal (a story which may or may not have happened but there is no evidence to support it).

I rarely write historic but I might mention history in my modern day stuff. IN which case, I might have characters mention some fact in history and then have another, more pedantic, character make the comment that it never happened and, in fact... So both aspects covered there nicely and maybe readers are educated by it too (oddly enough, one of my MCs is a history student who is a pedant and my wife is a history graduate who is also a pedant... of course there is absolutely no link there and I have never made some comment about history only to then have to sit through a lecture on why I was wrong for beleiving a common misconception )

But...

history is always written by the victors. Thus we get Roman history about barbarians and savages, and the people's version of the French Revolution etc. Oh, and Bunker Hill and TonyPandy!

All we can do is read the personal documents, if there are any, otherwise it's commonsense time isn't it?

And I think myth is preferable to the word Historicity which looks as bad as it sounds!

Oh yes, Tactitus was a big fat liar according to an Historian friend of mine. He claimed the celts were vicious savages who won battles only by outnumbering the better equipped and trained Romans. The truth, apparently, is that the Celts merely observed the Roman tactics and came up with methods to counter them - such as drive by chariot attacks (a slow moving Roman phalanx couldn't respond to a sudden rush of javelin throwing celts in chariots quick enough to get a counter attack in). They also followed the tactics of every guerilla force in history when faced with foreign invaders and used the terrain Vietnam style. We actually watched 'The Eagle' a few weeks ago and while I won't comment on the inaccuracies (cos that would be hypocritical cos I have loads of them in my story... ) I did notice that the director had a definite Vietnam vibe going on in many of the forest scenes. I almost expected some 60's music to blare up )

areteus said:

Oh yes, Tactitus was a big fat liar according to an Historian friend of mine. He claimed the celts were vicious savages who won battles only by outnumbering the better equipped and trained Romans. The truth, apparently, is that the Celts merely observed the Roman tactics and came up with methods to counter them - such as drive by chariot attacks (a slow moving Roman phalanx couldn't respond to a sudden rush of javelin throwing celts in chariots quick enough to get a counter attack in). They also followed the tactics of every guerilla force in history when faced with foreign invaders and used the terrain Vietnam style.

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EEKK!

When Romans refer to Celts, they are talking about Europe. Britain was seen as separate and not Celt. The term Celtic doesn't apply until the Gaelic invasion from Ireland after the Roman Empire has collapsed.

*There is an excellent piece in Archaeology magazine this month by the advisor to The Eagle who is a senior lecturer in Roman Archaeology at The University of Newcastle Upon Tyne, who accounts for the inaccuracies and difficulties with the portrayal of Roman Britain that stem from Sutcliff's novel. For example, stirrups. She argued they shouldn't be there, the insurance company won.

Well, stirrups are not around until the middle ages and then only in Mongolia (or is that another apophrycal tale? ) so I agree with that one... but I guess safety has to come in somewhere and the majority would not notice anyway.

And you are right about the celts... technically they are Britons at that point.

areteus said:

And you are right about the celts... technically they are Britons at that point.

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"Celt" is more a label for the overall culture that's dated way back and spread pretty much the length and breath of Europe into Asia. They've always had regional/tribal names to identify them.

But, then, I'm a big of a Celtophile and don't really expect the average reader to care a whit about that kind of detail.

This is from the 'Author's Note' to a novel of mine that's waiting for a final polishing. It sums up how I feel about this.

[FONT=&quot]When I came to write this book, I started to research the early history of Argentina. What soon became obvious was that many of the incidents recorded by the chroniclers of that nation's birth either never happened or happened in ways that were significantly different from those described. Yet it is the stories, not the historical facts, that have defined the spirit of that still-young country.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]In the end, it is stories that give us our sense of who we are and where we come from. Alfred never burnt the cakes, Harold didn't die with an arrow in his eye, but these are the myths that sustain us.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Which is my way of saying that when the historical facts and my feeling of what should have happened were in conflict, history went out of the window.[/FONT]

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areteus said:

Well, stirrups are not around until the middle ages and then only in Mongolia (or is that another apophrycal tale? )

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I vaguely remember seeing the Ghengis Khan exhibition at the NY Metropolitan Museum a few years back and I think that said that it was the invention of stirrups (essential if you are to fire a bow accurately on horseback) that gave the Mongol hordes such an overwhelming military advantage.

I wouldn't want to be quoted on that, though.

Very nice, Tom. I like that. Sums it up very nicely.

Didn't...

some of the British practical archaeologists, along with a couple of Roman re-enactor groups, (the serious ones!) prove that the Roman auxiliary (i.e. non-ROMAN) horse troops use stirrups. They found designs of saddles or some such and troop training exercises which all used stirrups.

pdr said:

some of the British practical archaeologists, along with a couple of Roman re-enactor groups, (the serious ones!) prove that the Roman auxiliary (i.e. non-ROMAN) horse troops use stirrups. They found designs of saddles or some such and troop training exercises which all used stirrups.

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You could be right.

It would not surprise me... trouble is a lot of people work on 'school' history which, if it is anything at all like 'school science' is at least 30 years out of date of modern techniques and info. Plus some history teachers don't necessarily have up to date experience in the subject and/or may have been badly educated themselves with the same misconceptions. This is why these things persist

I do remember there being something about Romans and stirrups, come to think about it. But then the genius of Rome was in their engineering and infantry. I also remember something about stories of centaurs starting in Greece because of sightings of a tribe of barbarians who were exceptional on horseback (perhaps stirrups there too?)

Based on my 9th century reseach, stirrups began to appear in the Carolingian Empire in the early-mid-800s

history is always written by the victors.

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Civil War for some reason got written mainly by the American South.

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Personally, I'd have said history is written by those with an agenda.... The first questions I teach my students to ask of any historical document are: "Who is writing this?" and "Why are they writing this?"

Kitti said:

Personally, I'd have said history is written by those with an agenda.... The first questions I teach my students to ask of any historical document are: "Who is writing this?" and "Why are they writing this?"

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Everyone has a bias/agenda.

Especially when it comes to scientific research, 'who is paying for this?'

I think literate is more important than winner in the modern era. The ancient tribes only lost out because the Romans had better ways of recording thier exploits but in more recent times everyone is literate and everyone records everything...

Correcting myself. Portmanteau of History and authenticity. =P

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Like 'Coolthentic' which is my new word du jour (may even be word du year ) which is a combination of cool and authentic and has been used to describe situations where it is better for the story to use one version of events than it is to use the other or for costume which is not quite accurate but is accurate enough and looks better than accurate...

Let me go ask Comrade Ogilvy about this question...

gothicangel said:

Everyone has a bias/agenda.

Especially when it comes to scientific research, 'who is paying for this?'

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This is my point too. And given that history is relative/ subjective, I can come with my version in a historical fiction novel.