#and ur like “is there any chance whatsoever that this monk knows exactly - to the digit - how many people died in that battle? hrmm...” | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

nostalgia-tblr · 3 months ago

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"Rodulfus was even less concerned than most of his contemporaries with what a modern mind conceives as 'the facts', and is therefore not a reliable recorder of them." - The Formation of a Persecuting Society: Power and Deviance in Western Europe, 950-1250, R I Moore

#have just started this book am enjoying it so far (i expect it'll get grim pretty quick though given the topic)#this bit leapt out at me as amusing though because yep. they'd just make shit up and write it down next to the truth.#and ur like “is there any chance whatsoever that this monk knows exactly - to the digit - how many people died in that battle? hrmm...”#i remember a bit in a saints life about a guy driven mad by bees flying into (or was it out of?) his penis and passing thru his entire body #and feel free to call me a modern fact-fetishising cynic for this but i suspect that incident did not actually happen.#i think they know it too half the time though and are just going for literary effect and assuming the reader will know that?#maybe the monk himself thinks “nobody's going to think i based these numbers on reality i mean come on clearly this bit's nonsense.”#i don't personally know Rodulfus the Bald though so apologies if this misrepresents his familiarity with “facts” and willingness to lie.#books and reading #history stuff #anywho back to reading i go!#just wanted to share!#medieval europe

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