Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2016 June 19

= June 19 =

What people knew when about history
Hi friends. I'm having trouble formulating my question, so I can't figure out where to even begin. But how would I find out what the general picture of history was for a given time and place in the past. For example, if people in 1420 India knew about cave paintings and who they thought had made them when. Or how long ago Malory thought Arthur had lived before his time. Of if people in the 1930s had any concept of the out of Africa migrations of early humans. Maybe here is some such thing as a history of when we thought what about history? Many thanks184.147.121.62 (talk) 12:18, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Historiography, the history of history. Jim.henderson (talk) 13:11, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Thanks. The article is a list of historians and the topics they were interested in. Is your meaning that there is no shorter way to find my answer then by reading individual histories from various points in history? I would like to find a summary or timeline: In 1850, these facts were known and these were not, etc.184.147.121.62 (talk) 15:27, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * Known by whom? As long as writing has existed, there has been a means to (more or less) make historical knowledge somewhat permanent.  Each human knows only a subset of history.  You'd get very different answers depending on who and where they were.  Royals would have known different things than scholars, which would have known different things than the average shit farmer.  -- Jayron 32 17:39, 19 June 2016 (UTC)


 * In the case of Thomas Malory, his Arthurian legends were loosely based on the work of Geoffrey of Monmouth, who in 1136 wrote the History of the Kings of Britain, which was widely believed to be factual until well into the 17th century. Geoffrey helpfully cross-referenced the early events in his book with events in the Bible and in the classics; so for instance, when he describes the reign of Queen Gwendolen, he adds "At this time Samuel the prophet governed in Judea, Sylvius Aeneas was yet living, and Homer was esteemed a famous orator and poet". The later part of the narrative is not referenced in this way, until the last of Geoffrey's Kings of the Britons, Cadwallader, who we are told died on "upon the twelfth before the kalends of May, in the six hundred and eighty-ninth year of our Lord's incarnation".  However, the story is peppered with factual events such as the accession of Constantine the Great and the departure of the Romans from Britain. So educated medieval people understood a sequence of historical events, even if it was seriously flawed by today's standards.
 * In answer to your last question, you may be interested in A History of Histories: Epics, Chronicles, Romances and Inquiries from Herodotus and Thucydides to the Twentieth Century by John Burrow (2009). Alansplodge (talk) 18:36, 19 June 2016 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure where Geoffrey got his information from specifically, but that was a common theme in medieval historical writing, which I think comes from the Chronicon of Eusebius of Caesarea. I don't know if he invented that style but that's probably where later authors got it from. Adam Bishop (talk) 14:41, 20 June 2016 (UTC)


 * You might like to take a look at Hesiod's Ages of Man which bears some odd coincidences with modern archeological theories and myths of the wider Mediterranean area. Notice the metallurgical progression from gold, silver and copper to bronze, then iron.  This basically fits modern theories of the stone, bronze, and iron ages in the West.  Copper, silver and gold were known during the stone age, but not refined from ores.


 * Bronze, is a harder metal, and it is not found like native copper, but has to be forged as an alloy. Note that one of the major uses of bronze was in warfare.  The Hesiodic bronze age ends with the flood of Deucalion.  This is suspiciously close in time to the Minoan eruption (~1600BC), the effects of which were worldwide.


 * Following this comes the invasion of the Sea Peoples, (Hesiod's "Heroic Age") with abrupt dynastic changes across the eastern Mediterranean, and the advent of warfare using iron, which replaced the softer bronze. Hesiod (~700 BC) dates to a few centuries after this time, so there seems to be at least an oral tradition of a progression of "ages" up to the time of Homer. μηδείς (talk) 17:16, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Children story about the frog who had a party and no one came
This was a British children's story. A frog or toad lived in a little house in a pond. She mailed invitations to a party and made "jellies" llike Jello as refreshments. No one came. Perhaps she then held the party at a dryer place and people came. Any clue of author/title? Don't think it is a Beatrix Potter. Edison (talk) 19:46, 19 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Not a clue, but I found Looking for a Childhood Book? Here's How. which has a section at the foot of the page where you can post queries. Seems to be very active. Alansplodge (talk) 21:27, 19 June 2016 (UTC)