Why is history rewritten?

Front matter

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Preface

HE purpose of this book is to give a partial answer to the question raised by its title. It is written for the general reader and an effort has therefore been made to eliminate, as far as possible, footnotes and citations from authorities. But the general reader with an inquiring mind can readily reconstruct the ultimate grounds for the conclusions deduced. It is not a work on historical method, as this subject has been amply and authoritatively discussed by many writers in English, French, German, and Spanish. It almost ignores what is usually termed ‘“‘criticism,”’ since it is hoped that this subject may be considered more fully in work long in preparation by the writer on the general subject of historical material. No occult reason for writing the book lies behind it. The only hope of the writer is that it may serve to clarify in some slight degree the confusion that prevails somewhat generally in regard to the nature, function, and history of history. The writer is under obligation to the editors of The North American Review for permission to incorporate part of an article which appeared in that periodical. She has also ventured to plagiarize from herself to the extent of using a few paragraphs from two privately printed pamphlets.

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Contents

CHAPTER PAGE INTRODUCTION Xi-Xili I. OF MAKING MANY HISTORIES I-II II. IS ANY HISTORY WORTH WHILE? . 12-30 Ill. EXTENSION OF METHOD THROUGH DIVISION OF LABOR . 31-42 IV. NEW MATERIAL ALONG OLD LINES AND ITS _ DIFFICULTIES : : 43-55 V. HISTORICAL CRITICISM 56-67 VI. EXTENSION OF THE BASE ON WHICH HISTORY IS WRITTEN . : : 68-87 VII. THE INTERPRETATION OF HISTORY 88-101 VIII. MANY MEN OF MANY MINDS—IN ENGLAND 102-133 IX. MANY CLAIMANTS FOR AN HONOR—IN AMERICA 134-161 X. EXTENSION OF THE AUDIENCE FOR WHOM HISTORY IS WRITTEN 162-189 XI. WHY IS HISTORY REWRITTEN? 190-211 NOTE 3 213-214 CHART SHOWING THE SOURCES OF J. H. ROBIN- SON’S “HISTORY OF WESTERN EUROPE” . facing 214 INDEX | a Teo | aah: | nf » 7 a

Introduction

HIs is the last piece of historical work that Miss

Salmon brought to completion. It was finished

in the fall of 1926, and was in the hands of the publisher when she died three months later. If she had chosen just which of her works she would leave for posthumous publication she could not have made a more characteristic or more worthy choice. Through this whole work runs her mature, sane, thoughtful conception of history. No one who had not done much research would write with such realization of the difficulties of the task of historical scholarship. Yet no one who was not a teacher would approach the subject in so practical and so appreciative a spirit. Enthusiasm for discovery, approval of rigorous methods of investigation, willingness to accept the truth, whatever it may prove to be, enjoyment of good writing suffuse this work, as they did all Miss Salmon’s writing and teaching.

There is no lack in it of condemnation of what is false or ignorant or partisan in historical writing, but she takes for granted that her readers also will condemn it and will accept all her high ideals for her subject. Her book, therefore, notwithstanding the rhetorical question that gives it its title, is not so much an argument as it is an explanation, an explanation of why history should be written and rewritten. Miss Salmon finds a score of reasons why it must be rewritten but she finds a hundred other questions to be answered and criticisms to be made as she goes along. History has progressed from naive tales of personal adventure through its use for partisan purposes to its modern state of a branch of science. In each stage it has used materials, followed standards,

Xl xii INTRODUCTION chosen subjects, and clothed itself in a style reflecting the period. Sometimes it has been based on thoughtless tradition, sometimes it has used critically edited manuscripts, sometimes it has sought and utilized only such materials as supported its contentions; increasingly frequently it has drawn upon newly discovered material remains of all kinds.

This thesis with a wealth of discussion and illustration is the argument of Miss Salmon’s book. The antithesis between fact and interpretation, history as a borrower of material from other sciences and as a lender to them, history as a pioneer and history in the defensive, history as taught, as written, as discovered from the monuments,—all these and many other matters appear in their logical place in Miss Salmon’s book.

So Miss Salmon says with humor and a wealth of happy quotations and apposite references what is in her mind about the worth of history, its growing richness of materials, its increasingly rigorous standards, the sins of those who have written it badly and the ideals of those who search for historical truth with assiduity and write it with grace. She finds abundant justification for the constant rewriting of history and is optimistic concerning its progress. Her book will appeal of course most extensively to students and writers and teachers of history, and they will find in it much of professional interest. But the general reader also will be interested. The position of history in the eyes of the world has never been higher than it is at present. Yet none know better than those who pursue it most closely the inadequacies of its materials and the deficiencies of its presentation. But. these come from the innate difficulties of the task. To cause those who are not themselves professed historians to

INTRODUCTION XIll realize this is to answer Miss Salmon’s question, ‘“‘Why is history rewritten ?”

There has been much thinking and writing among historians along these lines in recent years. Many of us have long been dissatisfied with merely adding fact to fact and thus increasing the general sum of historical information, and even with the somewhat higher process of clarifying and systematizing historical knowledge. Nor does the search for a philosophy of history appeal at present to any considerable number of historians. The tendency of curious minds has rather been to turn to an examination of history as itself a subject of thought. What has been its history, its materials, its methods, its object, its relation to other subjects, its requirements from its votaries? This is the field of ‘“The Writing of History,” the authoritative report of a carefully chosen committee of the American Historical Association two years ago; such have been the matters dwelt upon in more than one presidential address before that body and in discussion in national and international gatherings, and this is the main subject of the brilliant inaugural address of George M. Trevelyan when he took his seat as Regius Professor of History at Cambridge last year. It is to this class of works that Miss Salmon’s book belongs. Interpenetrated as it is with her personality as a thoughtful scholar, a wide reader, and a practical teacher, and representing, as it evidently does, long and careful thought, it is not only the most recent of this group of writings but one of the most valuable and interesting.

Epwarp P. CHEYNEY University of Pennsyluama, August, 1928.

Xil INTRODUCTION chosen subjects, and clothed itself in a style reflecting the period. Sometimes it has been based on thoughtless tradition, sometimes it has used critically edited manuscripts, sometimes it has sought and utilized only such materials as supported its contentions; increasingly frequently it has drawn upon newly discovered material remains of all kinds.

This thesis with a wealth of discussion and illustration is the argument of Miss Salmon’s book. The antithesis between fact and interpretation, history as a borrower of material from other sciences and as a lender to them, history as a pioneer and history in the defensive, history as taught, as written, as discovered from the monuments,—all these and many other matters appear in their logical place in Miss Salmon’s book.

So Miss Salmon says with humor and a wealth of happy quotations and apposite references what is in her mind about the worth of history, its growing richness of materials, its increasingly rigorous standards, the sins of those who have written it badly and the ideals of those who search for historical truth with assiduity and write it with grace. She finds abundant justification for the constant rewriting of history and is optimistic concerning its progress. Her book will appeal of course most extensively to students and writers and teachers of history, and they will find in it much of professional interest. But the general reader also will be interested. The position of history in the eyes of the world has never been higher than it is at present. Yet none know better than those who pursue it most closely the inadequacies of its materials and the deficiencies of its presentation. But. these come from the innate difficulties of the task. To cause those who are not themselves professed historians to

INTRODUCTION XI realize this is to answer Miss Salmon’s question, “‘Why is history rewritten?”

There has been much thinking and writing among historians along these lines in recent years. Many of us have long been dissatisfied with merely adding fact to fact and thus increasing the general sum of historical information, and even with the somewhat higher process of clarifying and systematizing historical knowledge. Nor does the search for a philosophy of history appeal at present to any considerable number of historians. The tendency of curious minds has rather been to turn to an examination of history as itself a subject of thought. What has been its history, its materials, its methods, its object, its relation to other subjects, its requirements from its votaries? This is the field of ‘““The Writing of History,” the authoritative report of a carefully chosen committee of the American Historical Association two years ago; such have been the matters dwelt upon in more than one presidential address before that body and in discussion in national and international gatherings, and this is the main subject of the brilliant inaugural address of George M. Trevelyan when he took his seat as Regius Professor of History at Cambridge last year. It is to this class of works that Miss Salmon’s book belongs. Interpenetrated as it is with her personality as a thoughtful scholar, a wide reader, and a practical teacher, and representing, as it evidently does, long and careful thought, it is not only the most recent of this group of writings but one of the most valuable and interesting.

Epwarp P. CHEYNEY University of Pennsylvania, August, 1928.

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Chapter I Of Making Many Histories

YOUNG engineer was talking with a group of per- A sons devoting themselves to the study of history and during the conversation he remarked, ‘“‘Y our

work is of course plain sailing; you do not have to contend with such difficult problems as we do.” The conception of the task of the historian expressed by a member of a different guild of workers in the field of knowledge probably reflects the opinion held by many intelligent persons everywhere. ‘The problems of history doubtless do appear simple to those not actively engaged in attempting their solution,—do we not all bear with ease the burdens of others, assume with success their responsibilities, expend with wisdom their income, and invest with large profit their capital? But the student of history is not misled by outward appearances,— he knows his task is not an easy one, however much so it may appear to others. Indeed, so far from feeling that he is to be congratulated on the apparent ease with which his work may be accomplished, the student of history may feel that he is to be congratulated on the very number, the variety, and the complexity of the problems presented by his favorite study, and he may experience the exhilaration of the mountain climber in attacking and overcoming the obstacles in his path. He may go even farther and accept with joy the dictum that “the gods are not conceived as making things easy for man, but as making them difficult: their beneficence takes that form. ‘They set him hard tasks, they give him perplexing problems, they match him against superior odds,

I they send him forth on long and perilous adventures. 2 They spread the insoluble before him and say ‘Solve that!’ They fling the impossible at his feet and say, ‘Do that!’ They put his body to its mettle, his mind also and his soul. ‘They are the challengers.”

This is indeed in very truth the spirit with which the student of history must accept the challenge, not of the gods, but of the doubting Thomases who find in history but a pleasing branch of literature and who question the wisdom of devoting any further time to its study. “Let the dead past bury its dead”’ seems often their own defiant challenge.

Among all the many problems that confront the historian, none, he himself realizes, is more serious than that of the necessity of constantly rewriting history. Yet to the incredulous this may seem but an imaginary difhculty. Why, they may ask, does the historian feel this pressure to do over again what has once been done? Surely, it may be urged, if history has been once written it ought to stand; history deals with facts, these facts do not change, and the duplication of work already done means wasted, fruitless effort. Moreover, history is an interesting form of literature and anyone who wields a facile pen will have no difficulty in making his contribution to the literature of history. If the facts-of history do not change and if they have been presented in attractive literary form, the historian is surely taking upon himself a thankless task. Why then is history rewritten, —does it need to be rewritten?

The question is not unreasonable. That it is rewritten is evident from the long list of histories constantly coming from the press, often in number exceeding any other class of publications except fiction, yet much of this is apparently a duplication of what has already been done.

OF MAKING MANY HISTORIES 3

Within the past few years in America, England, France, and Germany there have appeared various general histories of the world, usually written on the co-operative plan, all practically covering the same field. Still other elaborate histories of the world are projected on a yet more extensive scale. The upheaval of society that resulted from the World War has led to plans for a great series in two hundred volumes on The Economic and Social History of the World War. This is but a cross section of the history of a limited field during a limited period. The finite mind can scarcely grasp the extent of the literature that would result were the history of the world since the coming of mankind to be written on the same extensive scale. :

What is true of world histories written both longitudinally and latitudinally is true of the histories of individual nations and of special subjects that cut across the histories of several countries. America, so often spoken of as ‘‘a new country,” has offered the historian a soil scarcely less fertile than has the round world itself. History after history has come from the press, and these histories have been written by the individual historian, or through the co-operation of many historians; they have been published in one volume or in a dozen; they have dealt with the military, or with the political, or with the economic, or with the literary aspects of our past; they have presented the points of view of different geographical sections, or of different political parties, yet fundamentally they may seem much alike.

The situation in England is comparable to that in America. Within recent years the history of England has been written and rewritten, and this not simply to afford a choice between an epitome of English history and an exhaustive description of its past, between a constitutional and an ecclesiastical history, between a history of a limited period and one including the entire field, but in many cases the histories apparently cover practically the same ground, with the same exhaustiveness or the same condensation, and illustrate the same phase of England’s past. Lord Mahon’s narrative history of England during the eighteenth century fills seven volumes, while W. E. H. Lecky’s topical treatment of the same period extends through eight volumes. Sir J. R. Seeley in his Expansion of England skips from peak to peak through the same century in a single brief volume, with scarcely a telescopic glance at the work of his predecessors. J. R. Green’s Short History of the English People was written for the general reader and the work was so well done that, although it was issued more than fifty years ago, it is still in demand and its substantial merits are everywhere recognized. Yet the present year (1926) sees a new general history for the general reader coming from Professor George Trevelyan, whose gifted pen supplements but presumably does not supplant that of his predecessor in the same field.

This same situation is found practically everywhere. Long histories, each the work of a single author, co-operative histories, serial histories, exhaustive histories covering the entire field, exhaustive histories dealing with a limited period, elaborate monographs, comprehensive surveys, all follow each other in rapid succession, and all insistently claim the attention of readers and students.

The conditions are not at all different in the case of amore remote period. From the time of Herodotus and Thucydides, Livy and Tacitus to the current year, historian after historian has found his theme in the age of heroes and their valorous deeds. As far back as the

OF MAKING MANY HISTORIES 5 history of mankind can be traced, men have attempted to tell the story of the past,—from the time of prehistoric man to the efforts of to-day to combine the nations of the earth into a league for peace. Certain great classics that contain the elements of the universal have survived, some of them for centuries, and these are read and studied to-day with scarcely diminished interest, but for the most part all that has been done must be done over again. The countless histories written satisfy now neither the writers nor the readers of the past and “‘the six best sellers” of last year are not more effectively forgotten than are for the most part the works of the great historians of the past.

But before attempting to give a partial answer to the question, ‘‘Why is history rewritten?” it may be asked, “Why is history written at all?” It often seems necessary to justify the very existence of history as a part of © the field of knowledge worth cultivating. The mythology of Greece and Rome placed Clio on Mount Olympus, where with her companion muses she dwelt among the major divinities of heaven. But in an age that counts itself above all else a practical one, a long and distinguished lineage and a heavenly place of abode may not seem sufficient reasons for burning incense to the muse of history.

History itself answers no questions as to its origin. This is as shrouded in obscurity as is conscious birth to an individual. ‘The scroll of Clio has never been fully unrolled; and there seems no probability that it ever can be. Only the somewhat crude statement can be given that man has apparently always been interested in his own past. It is perhaps because of this very inability to penetrate to its utmost confines that he is ever fascinated by the pursuit of the inherently impossible. Another reason may be an even more probable explanation. The future is unknown, but the past affords at least an anchorage. Fear and dread of the unknown compel men to cling to the past as affording a firm foundation. This in turn may explain the intense desire of so many persons to be personally remembered and to keep in mind the memory of friends. Our cemeteries with their monuments bear silent evidence of the all-controlling desire of men to be remembered. Wills with their provisions for memorial gifts attest the same desire. Gifts in memory of those who have died show the inherent, persistent fear that otherwise oblivion will be the fate of those individually dear to their personal friends. Monuments erected to those whose lives men believe should not be forgotten indicate the collective honor paid to conspicuous service in behalf of city, state, or nation by those who could not have known them personally. History in its origin grew out of a desire to rescue from forgetfulness man’s personal and collective past.

This in the beginning was a somewhat simple matter. Narrative history was largely biography. Homer sang of the wrath of Achilles, and Virgil of the adventures of Aeneas. But conditions changed. Men ceased to be migratory and built cities for themselves. Thus the field of history was enlarged, and community and court life entered in. Perhaps rivalries led to conflicts, conflicts to concessions, concessions to the renewal and enlargement of conflicts. Perhaps adventure beckoned and there were new worlds to conquer. Perhaps. men ventured into the unknown intellectual world. Whatever the change in general human relationships, history long remained a simple narration of these obvious changes. The chronicles of the Old Testament, the travels of Herodotus, the annals of the mediaeval monks, all sug-

OF MAKING MANY HISTORIES a gest a simple outlook on life. They have all found a permanent place in the history of the past,. but they are the accounts of what men without effort on their part have witnessed from day to day and not the fruits of the inquiring mind pressing ever onward.

It is, therefore, most fitting that history, the subject that describes developments, should itself have a history and that the history of history should show as interesting a development as that which it itself records in other fields.

An important chapter in this history of history concerns the choice of material. The first historians were poets and the events they selected as subjects of their narration were those that appealed to the imagination. The stories of Achilles and Hector, of Ulysses and Penelope, as told by Homer, like those of Antigone and Ajax portrayed by Sophocles, are of thrilling interest and hold the imagination to-day as they did centuries ago. History thus at first occupied itself with the deeds of heroes either traditional or actual, and the historian concerned himself with the picture he was to present rather than with a close analysis of the materials of which it was composed. The question he asked was, “Will this material make a vivid picture?”

But in process of time the historian changed his point of view and he no longer selected his material with the sole object of using it to give a vivid picture of the past. He came to see that the subject matter of history might serve certain political ends both of the State and of the Church, and he therefore selected his material with this in mind. Moreover, in time, the invention of printing focused interest on the printed record and, since the critical faculty was but imperfectly developed, every printed record was accepted at its face value to the neglect of every other form of testimony. When, therefore, the object of writing history came to be largely subjective rather than objective, to be personal rather than general, and to center about State and Church rather than about individual heroes, the historian was governed in the selection of material by the question, ‘“‘Will this material serve my purpose?” ‘This principle has been the prevailing one almost to the present time. Clarendon was a Cavalier, Burnet an Anglican, Hume a Monarchist, and Grote a Whig, and to all of these historians history seemed quite naturally and honestly a means of exploiting the virtues of one political party and of showing the weaknesses of the opposing party.

But again the historian shifted his position, and with the birth of the science of historical criticism, he placed emphasis on the use of fresh material. His energies were given to the search for long-hidden documents and history came to be considered important if it was based on manuscripts discovered by the author.

But the rapid growth of the science of historical criticism has again brought a change in the aim of the historian. He is no longer the dramatist, intent only on the effect produced by his picture, he is still less the advocate holding a brief for monarchist or democrat, he is even less the pedant with eye fixed at short range on documents not worth the rescue from oblivion. Bryce has shown the historian of to-day that new material must be clothed in literary form, if it is to be worthy of the name of history; Mommsen has shown him that the historian must preserve a sense of proportion and of perspective in his use of new material; Morley has shown him that the historian may deservedly stand high in the confidence of politicians and statesmen and yet keep unswerving his allegiance to truth.

OF MAKING MANY HISTORIES 9

The historian has thus learned that he must be equipped for his work with the gift of literary expression, that his history may be effective; with abundance of material, that he may not generalize from insufficient data; with such experience in practical life as will make him a judge rather than an advocate; but most of all with the compelling force to tell the truth as he sees it.

The great question, therefore, that every historian asks of every other historian concerns authority. ‘What is the basis of your conclusion?” “‘What is the authority of your statement?” “How do you know?’’—this is the challenge that in one form or another meets the historian at every step of his way, and if at any point he fails to meet the challenge his entire work falls to the ground discredited.

Thus as Dissenter and Roman Catholic meet on common ground in opposition to Anglican, so the child who demands “true stories’ and the mature historian whose one pursuit is truth are alike in that both, consciously or unconsciously, look with disfavor on history written solely for effect, or to gain specific ends; on slipshod, superficial, inaccurate work; on formless, lifeless, jellyfish histories written to please everybody; on “‘safe’’ histories, that like “‘safe’’ candidates, are offered, the one to find purchasers and the other to find votes.

The historian, therefore, who brings before the public a new history must be prepared to find his every statement challenged by the question, ‘“What is your authority?” If he cannot show that his authority is unimpeachable, that the evidence he produces is absolutely trustworthy, that those upon whose authority he is forced to rely have had an eye single for the truth, his work justly fails in credibility in the view alike of readers and of scholars.

Thus as history developed from the early annals into a serious form of literature, it was widely cultivated, and it took on a stabilized, conventional character. This is the history that was long called history, in distinction from the older forms of chronicles, or annals. It was narrow and restricted in its scope, uncritical in its method, credulous in its acceptance of the raw materials out of which history is written, and sweeping in the conclusions it drew. It was inevitable that new forms of writing history should be developed, and it is the appearance of these that lies behind the question and gives the answer to it, Why is history rewritten ?

These new forms have been developed both from within and from without. In their development from within, they have established forms for the writing of history, they have prescribed standards and canons to which the historian must rigidly adhere, they have charted the fields of available material, and they have perfected an admirable technique for dealing with this material. ‘This, however, is only one hemisphere, and its discovery and exploration have fully occupied the time and energies of one great group of historians. In the development of the new forms of history from without, they have greatly extended the field from which historical material is to be drawn; they have voyaged the seven seas, not to secure rare or curious specimens to add to its collection, but to find the unifying principles common to other times and other lands; they have looked towards co-operation with other departments of knowledge as an ultimate goal.

These hemispheres have as yet not formed the perfect globe,—there are jagged edges that prevent complete coherence. Indeed, it sometimes seems that those who have played the chief parts in the two fields have become

OF MAKING MANY HISTORIES ie warring camps, quite unconscious of their mutual interdependence. But as the microscope and the telescope are both essential in extending the boundaries of knowledge and the adherents of neither one are justified in contemptuously rejecting, or in failing to acknowledge, the services of the other, so it has been made necessary to rewrite history through the theories both schools of historians have worked out.

CHAP TE Ratt

Is ANY HISTORY WORTH WHILE?

branch of knowledge known as history has been

universally accepted. But this is unhappily far from being the true situation, and it must be conceded that one of the most serious difficulties the historian has to meet is that of justifying the very existence of history and upholding its claim to be heard. The current conception of the nature of history and of its problems is a veritable stone of Sisyphus that the historian seems fated to roll up hill and that adds to his difficulty in rewriting history.

There is widely prevalent the belief that history is a comfortable but somewhat humdrum subject about which every one should know a little something. This view is supported by the authority of the late Alexander Bain. ‘The fact that history presents no difficulty to minds of ordinary education and experience,” he says, ‘‘and is moreover an interesting form of literature is a sufficient reason for not spending much time upon it in the curriculum of school or college. When there is any doubt, we may settle the matter by leaving it out.”” The advice sometimes given by their home friends to freshmen entering college is, “Take history, that’s easy.”