No Saxon invasion?

[authun]

Authun wrote;

'Yes, I am a great believer in the maxim, if you want to understand the story, understand the storyteller. That necessiates reading views from both ends of the spectrum in addition to more considered views.'


'I wouldn't bother to read what these guys say about the studies as they mostly don't appear to have read them themselves, at least not accurately.'

I'm not sure how too reconcile both of these statements:|

best
Ingvar

The latter simply means read and understand the study yourself and don't rely on the interpretation of someone else. They may not understand some aspects of it, may omit important aspects such as the caveats or may be summarising it from a prejudiced or misinformed background. It is very difficult to summarise, in lay terms, scientific publications, at least without boring the pants off everybody.

The former means if you have to rely on someone else's interpretation, whether that be the article in your orginal post or Gildas' or Bede's accounts, it is important to understand, as best as one can, from what point of view they write their piece. Chilperic for example asserts some degree of collaboration between the authors to create a view of history which is tempered by a right wing view of the present. I don't know if that is a fair criticism or not but these things do go on and so it should be borne in mind.

But, rather than just accept Chilperic's words at face value, we come back to my latter point again, read their work and see if there is any merit in the accusation.

cheers
authun