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Historisk tidskrift 125:2 • 2005

Innehåll (Contents) 2005:2

Uppsatser (Articles)

Är medeltidshistoria riktig historia?

Audur Magnúsdóttir

Fulltext (pdf)

Is Medieval History Real History?

An investigation of Swedish Ph.D. dissertations between 1999 and 2001 shows that works dealing with the Middle Ages are extremely rare. In fact Swedish medieval history has had difficulties defending its position within the field of historical study since the 1940’s. This article discusses possible explanations to this state of affairs, and it raises the question whether or not medieval history is considered to be ”real history” by Swedish historians. The source critical perspective, from Weibull and onwards, dismissed the relevance of the Icelandic sagas as sources to early medieval Icelandic and Scandinavian history. However the consequences of source criticism varied in the Nordic countries, seemingly affecting Swedish historical research the most. But source criticism was never intended to strangle medieval history. On the contrary, it aimed to develop new methods in order to improve historical research, including research in medieval history. The poor status of medieval history in Sweden therefore cannot be explained as simply the effect of the application of source criticism to historical research.

This article offers an alternative explanation. During the sixties and seventies scholarly focus moved towards the early modern and modern periods. Large projects dealing with topics of contemporary political and ideological interest dominated historical research. New research problems and the analysis of large data sets made traditional source criticism less relevant to researchers. Instead historians made use of theories from the social sciences and developed new methods of inquiry. This development came about during the period when less work was being done in medieval history. It is suggested that medieval history is no longer regarded as relevant because Swedish historical research is concentrated on the early modern and modern periods and on the geographic area of contemporary Sweden. Even if the methodological development of medieval history is similar to that of the discipline in general, at least in the other Nordic countries, the importance of the cultural, intellectual, political and social development of the Middle Ages do not seem to be of great interest. The question remains whether or not source criticism is to blame for this, or if the reason for the diminishing interest in medieval society lies in the definition of ”real history”.