If I understand Rosaldo's chapter correctly, even though it's allegedly an attack on E.E. Evans-Pritchard, it starts with a critique of French historian Emmanuel Le Roy Ladurie's (b. 1929) most famous book about the Languedoc village of Montaillou in the period of 1294-1324. It's a book originally published in 1975 (translated into Swedish by Jan Stolpe, published in 1980). I've got big difficulties in understanding in what sense the anthropologist Rosaldo would be a more reliable authority on the happenings in a Late Medieval Cathar village in Languedoc than historian Le Roy Ladurie, considering the latters expertise in late medieval and early modern Southern France. I've read other criticisms of Ladurie's book that seems pretty inane, like the opinion, that since the villagers of Montaillou were forced to stand before inquisitor Jacques Fournier to be questioned by him, this means that you cannot get to any reliable conclusion, or that since the villagers didn't speak modern French but Occitan, had their remarks written down in Latin and these were translated by Ladurie, then maybe something got "lost in translation". Well, to my mind the only thing to say is: OF COURSE, all these problems are real and difficult, but what's the alternative? Either you use the sources you have, or you stop trying to understand the conflicts of late medieval europe. The medieval historian cannot arrive to any contemporary village anywhere, he or she can only arrive in archives and libraries, and I guess that's the basic difference between the historian and the anthropologist.
Very good point, Anders: What’s the alternative? Le Roy Ladurie even included the disclaimer, but is ridiculed for it by Rosaldo. One can also ask who the book was aimed at. It seems to be in the genre of popular science, where certain rhetorical figures may be allowed that wouldn’t fit in a doctoral dissertation. (I cut a remark about this since I want to keep the videos for each chapter under 5 minutes.) And by the way, only after I had published the video I realised that Le Roy Ladurie’s book is about the Cathars, who I have read a German book about since their history is highly relevant to another project of mine. I’ll try to read Stolpe’s translation. (I like his recent Plato translations.) Thank you for watching!
@@karl.andersson I read Stolpes translation of Ladurie a couple of years after its Swedish publication and I realize that I maybe should have looked into my copy, he-he...Not that I think that I've got anything in particular wrong, but it's always good to have done a recent reading before arguing about things. I think you should also realize, that Ladurie belonged to an important school / tradition of French history, the Annales School, lead by historians like Fernand Braudel. Well, there's a lot we could talk about, but I guess this isn't the best place to get too longwinding. Brevity is - regrettably! - NOT my forte...
Oh, and the book about Montaillou was NOT Laduries doctoral thesis, which was "Le s Paysans de Languedoc" published as a book in 1966 and with an English translation in 1974.
