fajrdrako | Bones of history...

So much of what we think of as "history" is, really, nothing more than bare bones, lying bleached on a slab, from which the sinews, the cartilage, the secret places inside, the skin and lashes and smell, have been stripped away. These textures have been stripped not only from what we used to call "hard" history — the great events, the births and deaths and battles, the emperors and popes and Crusaders... Yes, we have the texts. But what of the monk? His name, his life? What of the armies of other anonymous and unknowable monks and scribes whose life's work was the transmission of the texts from which we derive our livings? To say nothing of the cooks who cooked the food for the monks and the sempstresses who made their clothing and the stable boys who shod the horses.... Of them, too, nothing can be known; of them, too, there is no 'history' left. - Daniel Mendelsohn