Gregory of Tours, poor dear, had no idea that uppity women in the twenty-first century would read parts of the Historia Francorum cheering for Fredegund all the way, much less that any of us would sit around wondering whether Tolkien's Queen Beruthiel was her Middle-Earth equivalent. (I wouldn't put it past JRRT, just as I also wouldn't put it past him to have introduced scribal errors into the Red Book of Westmarch -- and I say that as a great compliment.)
That said, I would've thought a historian would want to pay attention to context as well as text. Surely it's not too screamingly positivistic to observe that while all texts may or may not be created equal (depending on one's theoretical and/or moral allegiances), all sources are certainly not? A feminist retelling of the life of Fredegund of Soissons may be a fascinating read and an all-around spiffy text, but as a historical source to put up against Gregory, it's not even in the same constellation as, say, Venantius Fortunatus.
By the same token, I'm happy to consider LOTR as one more-or-less contemporary account of the Return of the Shadow and the War of the Ring, but I see Peter Jackson more as a modern revisionist historian, and one who is often scanty on either primary-source evidence or justification for the changes he proposes to the established narrative. So, yeah, it's a fun way to think about the movie, but it doesn't wipe out my irritation at some of the more gratuitous alterations. (Boromir a decent guy? Sure, especially if Merry and Pippin get a perspective in Fellowship. Faramir whitewashed? Possible -- the copy of the Red Book Tolkien translated was copied by one of his descendants, wasn't it? -- but something of a lectio difficilior. Elves at Helm's Deep left out? Not seeing the likelihood or the logic.)
no subject
That said, I would've thought a historian would want to pay attention to context as well as text. Surely it's not too screamingly positivistic to observe that while all texts may or may not be created equal (depending on one's theoretical and/or moral allegiances), all sources are certainly not? A feminist retelling of the life of Fredegund of Soissons may be a fascinating read and an all-around spiffy text, but as a historical source to put up against Gregory, it's not even in the same constellation as, say, Venantius Fortunatus.
By the same token, I'm happy to consider LOTR as one more-or-less contemporary account of the Return of the Shadow and the War of the Ring, but I see Peter Jackson more as a modern revisionist historian, and one who is often scanty on either primary-source evidence or justification for the changes he proposes to the established narrative. So, yeah, it's a fun way to think about the movie, but it doesn't wipe out my irritation at some of the more gratuitous alterations. (Boromir a decent guy? Sure, especially if Merry and Pippin get a perspective in Fellowship. Faramir whitewashed? Possible -- the copy of the Red Book Tolkien translated was copied by one of his descendants, wasn't it? -- but something of a lectio difficilior. Elves at Helm's Deep left out? Not seeing the likelihood or the logic.)