I would like to suggest that from one point of view, medieval *studies* are
in
the present, not in the past, and in a sense can't be confined to some
period
defined by endpoints in some calendat. What happened, or what was said
and done, in the period from X AD to Y AD (X < Y, with values to be
debated) is one thing, and what we say and think about what was said and
done in that period is another. What we say and think today about what
was said and done and thought in some period is conditioned by who we
are, what we've learned, what our experiences have been, and so on. I
suggest that trying to talk about events and documents of some past period
of time as if nothing has happened since then or that we haven't been and
continue to be influenced in many ways by what happened in the past is
doomed to fail in some degree. It's not possible, I think, to live, as it
were, wholly in some past time, as tempting as that may seem to be to
some of us.
It certainly seems to me to be desirable to limit in some manner what can
be said on an internet medieval-religion list about what happened and was
done and said in European medieval times concerning religion, but it's not
clear to me how this can be done with any precision. One thing, though,
is that the discussions should be limited to civil ones, which, people
being who they are, requires some regulation. But I suggest that
workable policies for such regulation should be flexible enough to
adjust for a plethora of circumstances. Regulators should, in my
view, try to enforce messages on the list to be concerned in some
fair degree to be related (or, as people say, "materially" related,
though here one might hope that thet they also be "spiritually"
related) to religions of the medieval Europe, a period whose
temporal limits historians have debated and continue to debate.
Periodization by historians is a murky subject, as far as I'm
concerned.
This brings to mind another of my historiographical beliefs. I think that
in some sense, a past which is completely independent of individuals is an
abstraction, a kind or part of a Kantian noumenon, if you like, at least as
far
as we humans are concerned. As a consequence, as a practical matter, I
like to consider that there are in fact many pasts, one for each individual.
Two persons may have quite similar pasts, or they may have quite dissimilar
pasts, or something in between, depending on who they are. I'm not
talking just about what this person or that has experienced during a life,
or
what the person remembers about his or her experiences, but also how a
person envisions "history", in the sense of what happened. How a person
envisions "history" in this sense produces "history" in another sense,
namely
what one imagines and says and thinks happened.
I suggest that the popular suggestion, usually attributed to Otto Ranke,
that
we discover and describe what *really* happened, wie es eigentlich
gewesen war, or, theologically speaking, what God hath actually wrought
is not a program which can be fully carried through. Now as in a glass
(mirror!) darkly . . . . .
I'm not sure that the above is relevant to this?
Gordon Fisher [log in to unmask]
"Rev. David G. Peters" wrote:
> We've recently been discussing where to draw the line as to what are and
> what are not topics appropriate to this mailing list. I am curious
> about the Reformers. For example, Martin Luther is sometimes considered
> a "late medieval" theologian. Sometimes he's considered an "early
> modern" theologian. Scholars differ as to the time frame of what
> constitutes "medieval studies." What do the scholars on this list
> consider to be the beginning and ending dates for the era which we are
> discussing here?
>
> -David Peters,
> Ph.D. student, Marquette University
>
> --
> Rev. David G. Peters,
> Pastor
> Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church
> Wisconsin Ev. Lutheran Synod
> 2908 S. Colony Ave.
> Union Grove, WI 53182-9564
> (262) 878-4156
> [log in to unmask]
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