This assignment provides you with an opportunity to discuss an insight you gained in this unit by comparing the development of two Early Medieval cultures.
For this assignment, choose two specific Western cultures between 632-1000 C.E. Using these, build a comparison that identifies at least three differences and three similarities from political leadership, and economic and social and/or cultural elements. Highlight any shared influences, biases, and perspectives. Before your conclusion, you will write a paragraph in which you reflect on the guidelines for ethical and rigorous study of cultures detailed at the beginning of the unit lesson (mentioned in Step 1 below). As you finish your assignment, include conclusions drawn from both your comparisons and your reflection. The assignment steps below will provide more guidance.
Step 1: Review the section at the beginning of the Unit Lesson entitled “Be Careful When Making Historical Assumptions.” (included at the bottom of page)
Step 2: Choose two appropriate sources, not including the textbook. At least one source must come from the CSU Online Library. The Academic Search Ultimate and eBook Academic Collection databases would be good places to start your search. Resources should be credible and peer-reviewed by historians and cannot include Wikipedia, Biography.com, History.com, or any other .com site; resources should also not be taken from any type of message board or other encyclopedia-type sites, including those listed in the research guides, which are provided for quick reference only and not for paper research.
Step 3: Complete your research using the guidelines on ethical and rigorous research you reviewed in Step 1:
- Choose two specific times and locations to research. Specific times and locations are necessary to avoid generalization.
- Avoid all generalization beyond the data you have researched on those times and locations, including projections of your own views.
- Avoid anachronism, which is the use of data or circumstances from today as if they are evidence of what the past means. Form your conclusions using only data from the past.
- Compare like terms, meaning the same kinds of things, in a point-by-point comparison (rather than writing about one culture and then the other).
- Consider artifacts and other cultural products.
- Use strong sources as indicated above.
- Include at least one comparison drawn from each of the following: 1) politics; 2) social organization or cultural products; and 3) the economy.
Step 4: Prepare a reflection on your use of the guidelines for ethical and rigorous historical research. What was your experience of attempting to limit generalization, anachronism, and use of weak sources? The assignment is not considered complete without this component.
Step 5: Write your essay in this order without headings: introduction, comparisons, reflection, conclusions. Your essay must be at least 500 words in length.
Be Careful When Making Historical Assumptions As we come closer and closer to our own time and see familiar names and institutions, the temptation to assume similarity and to assume we already know what they mean becomes stronger. Historians have specific guidelines to prevent these assumptions from distorting our understanding of the actual data from the times. Distortion of data can come from projecting our own beliefs onto the past, resulting in error. The measures we take to avoid error are also the measures that help to ensure the ethical study of other cultures. This involves five main practices students will apply in this unit’s essay assignment. All academic departments (disciplines) have different subjects and methods, but all have a version of guidelines to ensure ethical study and sound conclusions. 1. Historians seek to understand the past for itself. Of course, we all think about where our society came from and what we value or regret. That is an important outcome of historical thinking for citizenship. However, when we create knowledge about the past, we commit to learning about the past for its own sake and try to determine the significance of change for those in the past—not for us. The task is to learn what really happened before we try to apply it. Therefore, we question knowledge we bring to our writing projects and research it, using scholarly sources before including it in scholarly writing. 2. Historians adopt intellectual empathy to recreate the multiple points of view in past cultures. This does not mean that historians feel for or agree with the people they study but, rather, that they must try to understand how specific people actually experienced events and acted within their own worlds. Therefore, our goal is to deliberate, weigh complex data, and offer explanations of developments. 3. Historians use only evidence from specific times to generate and explain insights about those times. This is a fundamental rule of logic—you cannot understand the past by using data that did not come from it. Anachronism, which is the insertion of subsequent developments or ideas into the past and projection of present values onto the past, mars our views of the past. In this unit especially, we will see that the meanings of words we think we know very well used to be different. Whether studying Christian, Muslim, Irish, Persian, or Viking culture, students of history ideally realize that while they are studying a variety of cultures out of which theirs may have evolved, these past cultures are not the same as a student’s own culture. Beliefs and meanings of words and phrases change, so historians create definitions reflecting what was meant at the time. 4. Historians aim to reveal complexity and avoid over-simplification. Generalizations erase actual variations among cultures, within cultures, and across time. Therefore, we look for the unique and complex to deepen our understanding. To this end, we research and write about very specific times and places, keeping the scope of our scholarly work narrow to avoid generalization. We allow these understandings to evolve with new data. We read accounts that HIS 1305, Western Civilization I 3 UNIT x STUDY GUIDE Title counter our own to enhance the complexity and reliability of our work; this is called anticipating objections. 5. Historians pay attention to different types of evidence. Exploring cultures that ranged widely in how they recorded events. Earlier academic histories tended to focus more on written artifacts, emphasizing the perspectives of the literate and the victors. Therefore, capturing the past more completely requires “reading†other kinds of artifacts for what they tell us about their societies. During this period, cities, laws, practices, spaces, technologies, and images all provide clues to culture. Students of history, then, seek to recreate as nearly as possible the culture in its own moment. With these guidelines, students can enter that unfamiliar world of the past with the mindset of an explorer of the unknown, making strange what we might assume is familiar. Learning the complex details of early medieval life enables us to learn from the past as well as to enjoy our fictions about it.
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