5 ms·
There are probably many discoveries thought to be more modern, that were actually made earlier than we realise but were never written down. Word of mouth storie
by Thorentis 5y ago
There are probably many discoveries thought to be more modern, that were actually made earlier than we realise but were never written down. Word of mouth stories are often lost during mass population upheavals like war and famine.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- frupert52 5y agoAnd pandemics?
- tootie 5y agoPandemics would be pretty unlikely in the days of such low population density. Epidemics definitely happened pretty routinely though.
- blfr 5y agoThere was a bubonic plague pandemic (1346-1353) right after the time this book was wrtten (1339-1345 according to OP).
- tootie 5y agoSure, but the topic was pandemics we don't know about because they weren't written down. The bubonic plague was written about pretty extensively. Even earlier disease outbreaks were written about.
- sebws 5y agoI think the topic was how pandemics would cause word of mouth stories to be lost, not the story of pandemics.
- fuzzfactor 5y agoIt could be worse, it could be pestilence of biblical proportions. Oh wait . . .
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- masswerk 5y agoIt may be even worse, as history was eventually established, competing narratives were probably dismissed and neglected as weird tales without foundation or merit, and eventually suppressed. For which they eventually weren't retold anymore and eventually forgotten.
- abecedarius 5y agoA relevant case: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pytheas#Literary_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pytheas#Literary_influence (I linked to where he's getting dismissed as a liar centuries later, but the main story about the voyage is way more interesting.)
- masswerk 5y agoThis works both ways, compare the "Germania" by Tacitus, which was really about a fictional foil to contrast with the Julian dynasty, but became a historic document and origin story for a few centuries. (Sad to say, but humanists had a decent share in this.) Related literature: Chrisopher B. Krebs, "A Most Dangerous Book. Tacitus' Germania from Roman Empire to the Third Reich", W.W. Norton & Company, NY, 2011.