Our knowledge and understanding of the past generally relies
on academic historians and the evidence they find and interpret. Where there is
substantial evidence, and the testimony of those who participated in events,
then the historical picture can be more accurate. But the further back in time
we go, the fewer the fragments that can be used to piece together the reality
of the past, and the more we rely on interpretation. This means that a
historian, particularly an ancient historian, could get things very wrong.
This issue was highlighted by Hilary Mantel in her recent
Reith Lectures, in particular, her first lecture, entitled ‘The Day is for the
Living’. She quotes Patrick Collinson who points out that historians can come
to radically different conclusions, mainly because they rarely have access to
more than 1% of evidence about an event or period. Add to this the possible
bias of the historian – the fact that ‘history is written by the victors’ – and
you start to wonder about the veracity of anything much before 1700. This is a fundamental
point, and makes us realise how critical we should be about history, yet how
accepting we often are. It also alerts us to the unconscious interpretation we
all practice: what we see and hear passes through the filter of our
preconceptions and preferences before it is remembered.
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| . Photo: BBC |
The point is also a key element in Mantel’s defence of
historical fiction. She is effectively saying that everyone makes up their own
version of the past, historians included, but at least authors of fiction are
honest about the fabrication. Not that she advocates a jettisoning of the facts
– on the contrary, Mantel maintains that she became a novelist to tell the
truth. The words she puts in Thomas Cromwell’s mouth are her words, not his, and yet they are convincing. The reader of ‘Wolf
Hall’ or ‘Bring up the Bodies’ is not only entertained by well-crafted fiction,
but develops a greater understanding of Tudor life and politics.
