The Big Picture

The article “Photography as a Weapon”, exposes the perfect example of how the wrong information could be incredibly dangerous. The article itself uses as an example a doctored photograph of Iranian missles. This article written by Errol Morris presents the following questions about photographs. “Do they provide illustration of a text or an idea of evidence of some underlying reality or both? And if they are evidence, don’t we have to know that the evidence is reliable, that it can be trusted?” So, if photographs can be doctored can they really be counted as reliable evidence? Why wasn’t this doctored photograph caught earlier? What are the far reaching consequences of a tampered document?

The Monks

This hasn’t been the first time that documents have been tampered with. One of the greatest examples of western history are the works of the monks of Europe. When writing down the history of the ancient world they chose only to use the documents that supported what they were already teaching. In a way, doctoring evidence has always been a part of history, and because of that we have a limited knowledge of the ancient world.

The Difference

In today’s society, with the introduction of modern technology, it has become easier and easier to record current events. However, the problem of misinformation still persists. So, why wasn’t it caught earlier is not as important a question as why was it done in the first place. Information of all types can be used as a weapon, and information that is twisted in your favor would lead more people to your cause. However, it could also lead to a wide scale panic and uneccessary violence. That’s the power of information.

The Problem

“Whereas analog data is a varying and continuous stream, digital data is only a sampling of the original data that is then encoded into the 1s and 0s that a computer understands” (Cohen).”

Above is in a nutshell what faces today’s digital historians. Since the data historians receive from analog has no breaks in it any document they use would be complete when they finished. However, since digital has breaks, it is quite easy to incompletely digitize a document. This could be a major problem for any archivist.

Possible Solution and Reason For Interest

The major problem with digitizing a document is that, depending on the time spent and the amount of storage, the document could lose a key element. This is thankfully becoming rectified with the introduction of more advanced digital technology. This section interested me because, since my goal is to become an archivist, I want to be able to properly store historical documents in their entirety. If even one element was lost, the context of the document would be lost to the ages.

My Alchemic Research Question

What was it that made the practitioners of Alchemy and Astrology different from their folk magic counterparts?

Who Were the Cunning-Folk?

In the 13th century a group of unusual individuals were gaining prominence in the European Community. These people claimed special powers and offered their services to those of all walks of life. Popular terms for the male practitioners were “wizard and conjurer” (Davies VII) and after the 20th century the term “white witch” (Davies VIII) was used for females, where before the term “wise-women” (Davies VIII) was popular. However, the name that seems to suit these individuals best is Cunning-Folk which is derived “from the Anglo-Saxon cunnan, meaning to know”(Davies VIII). The reason these people had such great standing in medieval culture was because they appeared to have more knowledge than those around them. They mostly operated within the communities of the common people and practiced an art known has folk magic which is “characterised as a rich medley of indigenous beliefs, practices and rituals, some of them dating back to Anglo-Saxon times, perhaps even earlier, perpetuated largely through oral transmission” (Davies X).

What Were the Duties of the Cunning-Folk?

The duties of the Cunning-Folk were but not limited to:

1. Healing with Herbal Remedies
2. Breaking Curses
3. Catching Thieves
4. Fortune-Telling
5. Match-Making

With all of these professed skills Cunning-Folk formed an integral part of society whether as the village healer or a target of legal action.

The Cunning-Folk’s Detractors

The Cunning Folk faced many challenges to their activities. Such challenges were initiated by individuals such as:

• Clergy who believed that Cunning-Folk were in league with the Devil.
• Nobles who believed that Cunning-Folk were a threat to the social order.
• Commoners who had been charged with crimes by the Cunning-Folk who practiced “thief detection” (Davies 2).

Conclusion

The Cunning-Folk while existing outside the traditional norm for medieval society also formed an important part of it. They acted as healers, detectives, and counselors. While they were at times viewed with suspicion, their influence could not be ignored.

For more information see this link

Wikipedia Cunning Folk

Works Cited

Davies, Owen. Cunning-Folk: Popular Magic in English History. London: Hambledon and London, 2003.
Print.

While reading Digital History A Guide to Gathering, Preserving, and Presenting the Past On the Web and watching the You Tube video on the development of the Internet, two things interested me.  First, while reading about all the codes needed to build a website from the ground up, I was reminded of my mother’s stories of when she would prepare copy for the typesetter by entering different typed codes before and after text to be capitalized or italisized to get the desired final product.  Now it seems built into word processing. Second, while watching the video I was amazed that the internet’s origins involved scientific, military, and commercial ventures. From this I learned that many concepts we have as human beings merely change forms as history progresses, but still keep their core, and that many improvements are the results of several different factors, goals, and enterprises.

Three topics I’d be interested in blogging about are:

1. The Practicioners of Folk-Magic and Their Relationship with Early Medieval Society.

2. The Scientific Magi: the Intellectual Students of Alchemy and Astrology

3. Post-Reformation Mania and Fear of Occultism.