Matthew Paris Paris as a historian
what did Matthew Paris do as a historian?
What did Matthew Paris do as a historian?
From 1235, the point at which Wendover dropped his pen, Paris continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed. He derived much of his information from the letters of important people, which he sometimes inserts, but much more from conversation with the eyewitnesses of events. Among his informants were Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King Henry III, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms.  The king knew that Paris was writing a history, and wanted it to be as exact as possible. In 1257, in the course of a week's visit to St Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and day, "and guided my pen," says Paris, "with much goodwill and diligence." It is curious that the Chronica majora gives so unfavourable an account of the king's policy. Henry Richards Luard supposes that Paris never intended his work to be read in its present form. Many passages of the autograph have written next to them, the note offendiculum, which shows that the writer understood the danger which he ran. On the other hand, unexpurgated copies were made in Paris's lifetime. Although the offending passages are duly omitted or softened in his abridgment of his longer work, the Historia Anglorum (written about 1253), Paris's real feelings must have been an open secret. There is no ground for the old theory that he was an official historiographer.  Naturalists have praised his descriptions of the English wildlife of his time, brief though they are: in particular his valuable description of the first irruption into England in 1254 of the common crossbill. CANNOTANSWER
Paris continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed.
Matthew Paris, also known as Matthew of Paris (; c. 1200 – 1259), was an English Benedictine monk, chronicler, artist in illuminated manuscripts and cartographer, based at St Albans Abbey in Hertfordshire. He wrote a number of works, mostly historical, which he scribed and illuminated himself, typically in drawings partly coloured with watercolour washes, sometimes called "tinted drawings". Some were written in Latin, some in Anglo-Norman or French verse.

His Chronica Majora is an oft-cited source, though modern historians recognise that Paris was not always reliable.  He tended to glorify Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II and denigrate the Pope. However, in his Historia Anglorum, Paris displays a highly negative view of Frederick, going as far as to describe him as a "tyrant" who "committed disgraceful crimes".

Life and work
In spite of his surname and knowledge of the French language, Paris was of English birth, and is believed by some chroniclers to be of the Paris family of Hildersham, Cambridgeshire.  He may have studied at Paris in his youth after early education at St Albans School. The first we know of Matthew Paris (from his own writings) is that he was admitted as a monk to St Albans in 1217. It is on the assumption that he was in his teens on admission that his birth date is estimated; some scholars suspect he may have been ten years or more older; many monks only entered monastic life after pursuing a career in the world outside.  He was clearly at ease with the nobility and even royalty, which may indicate that he came from a family of some status, although it also seems an indication of his personality. His life was mainly spent in this religious house. In 1248, Paris was sent to Norway as the bearer of a message from Louis IX to Haakon IV; he made himself so agreeable to the Norwegian sovereign that he was invited to superintend the reformation of the Benedictine Nidarholm Abbey outside Trondheim.

Apart from these missions, his known activities were devoted to the composition of history, a pursuit for which the monks of St Albans had long been famous. After admission to the order in 1217, he inherited the mantle of Roger of Wendover, the abbey's official recorder of events, in 1236.  Paris revised Roger's work, adding new material to cover his own tenure.  This Chronica Majora is an important historical source document, especially for the period between 1235 and 1259.  Equally interesting are the illustrations Paris created for his work.

The Dublin MS (see below) contains interesting notes, which shed light on Paris' involvement in other manuscripts, and on the way his own were used. They are in French and in his handwriting:
"If you please you can keep this book till Easter"
"G, please send to the Lady Countess of Arundel, Isabel, that she is to send you the book about St Thomas the Martyr and St Edward which I copied (translated?) and illustrated, and which the Lady Countess of Cornwall may keep until Whitsuntide"
 some verses
 "In the Countess of Winchester's book let there be a pair of images on each page thus": (verses follow describing thirteen saints)

It is presumed the last relates to Paris acting as commissioning agent and iconographical consultant for the Countess with another artist.

The lending of his manuscripts to aristocratic households, apparently for periods of weeks or months at a time, suggests why he made several different illustrated versions of his Chronicle.

Manuscripts by Matthew Paris

Paris' manuscripts mostly contain more than one text, and often begin with a rather random assortment of prefatory full-page miniatures. Some have survived incomplete, and the various elements now bound together may not have been intended to be so by Paris. Unless stated otherwise, all were given by Paris to his monastery (from some inscriptions it seems they were regarded as his property to dispose of). The monastic libraries were broken up at the Dissolution. These MSS seem to have been appreciated, and were quickly collected by bibliophiles. Many of his manuscripts in the British Library are from the Cotton Library.

 Chronica Majora. Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, Mss 26 and 16, 362 x 244/248 mm. ff 141 + 281, composed 1240–53. His major historical work (see below), but less heavily illustrated per page than others. These two volumes contain annals from the creation of the world up to the year 1253. The content up to 1234 or 1235 is based in the main on Roger of Wendover's Flores Historiarum, with additions; after that date the material is Paris' own, and written in his own hand from the annal for 1213 onward. There are 100 marginal drawings (25 + 75), some fragmentary maps and an itinerary, and full-page drawings of William I. MS 16 has very recently had all prefatory matter re-bound separately.
A continuation of the Chronica, from 1254 until Paris' death in 1259, is bound with the Historia Anglorum in the British Library volume below. An unillustrated copy of the material from 1189 to 1250, with much of his sharper commentary about Henry III toned down or removed, was supervised by Paris himself and now exists as British Library Cotton MS Nero D V, fol. 162–393.
 Flores Historiarum. Chetham's Hospital and Library, Manchester, MS 6712. Only part of the text, covering 1241 to 1249, is in Paris' hand, though he is credited with the authorship of the whole text, which is an abridgement of the Chronica with additions from the annals of Reading and of Southwark. Additional interpolations to the text make it clear the volume was created for Westminster Abbey. It was apparently started there, copying another MS of Paris' text that went up to 1240. Later it was sent back to the author for him to update; Vaughan argues this was in 1251-2. The illustrations are similar to Paris' style but not by him. Later additions took the chronicle up to 1327.
 Historia Anglorum. British Library, Royal MS 14 C VII, fols. 8v–156v. 358 x 250 mm, ff 232 in all. A history of England, begun in 1250 and perhaps completed around 1255, covering the years 1070–1253. The text is an abridgement of the Chronica, also drawing on Wendover's Flores Historiarum and Paris' earlier edited version of the Chronica. Bound with it is the final part of Paris' Chronica Majora, covering the years 1254–1259 (folios 157–218), and prefatory material including an itinerary from London to Jerusalem and tinted drawings of the kings of England. All is in Paris' own hand, apart from folios 210–218 and 154v-156v, which are in a hand of the scribe who has added a note of Matthew Paris' death (f. 218v). The Chronica concludes with a portrait of Paris on his death-bed, presumably not by him. By the 15th century this volume belonged to Humphrey, Duke of Gloucester, son of Henry IV, who inscribed it "Ceste livre est a moy Homffrey Duc de Gloucestre". Later it was held by the bishop of Lincoln, who wrote a note that if the monks of St Albans could prove the book was a loan, they should have it back. Otherwise it was bequeathed to New College, Oxford. The fact that the book was acquired by a 16th-century Earl of Arundel suggests that Duke Humphrey's inscription was not entirely accurate, as New College would probably not have disposed of it.
 Abbreviatio chronicorum (or Historia minor), British Library Cotton MS Claudius D VI, fols. 5–100. Another shortened history, mainly covering 1067 to 1253. Probably begun circa 1255, it remained unfinished at Paris' death. Illustrated with thirty-three seated figures of English kings illustrating a genealogy. It also contains the most developed of Paris' four maps of Great Britain.
 Chronica excerpta a magnis cronicis. British Library Cotton MS Vitellius A XX, folios 77r–108v. Covers from 1066 to 1246. Written at some point between 1246 and 1259. Not definitely by Paris, but evidently written under his supervision, with some of the text in his own hand.
 Book of Additions (Liber additamentorum) British Library Cotton MS Nero D I, ff202 in all, contains maps, Vitae duorum Offarum (illustrated), Gesta abbatum, the lives of the first 23 abbots of St Albans with a miniature portrait of each, coats of arms, as well as copies of original documents. A version of his well-known drawing of an elephant is in this volume, as is a large drawing of Christ, not by Paris.
 Life of St Alban etc., dating controversial (1230–1250), Trinity College, Dublin Library, Ms 177 (former Ms E.I.40) 77 ff with 54 miniatures, mostly half-page. 240 x 165 mm. Also contains a Life of St Amphibalus, and various other works relating to the history of St Albans Abbey, both also illustrated. The Life of St Alban is in French verse, adapted from a Latin Life of St Alban by William of St Albans, ca. 1178. The manuscript also contains notes in Paris' hand (see above) showing that his manuscripts were lent to various aristocratic ladies for periods, and that he probably acted as an intermediary between commissioners of manuscripts and the (probably) lay artists who produced them, advising on the calendars and iconography.
 Life of King Edward the Confessor 1230s or 40s, Cambridge University Library MS. Ee.3.59. This is the only surviving copy of this work, but is believed to be a slightly later copy made in London, probably by court artists, of Paris' text and framed illustrations. Based on the Latin Life of Edward the Confessor by Aelred of Rievaulx, c. 1162.
 Life of St Thomas of Canterbury, British Library, Loan MS 88 – Four leaves (the "Becket Leaves") survive from a French-verse history of the life of Thomas Becket with large illuminations. Based on the Latin Quadrilogus compiled by Elias of Evesham at Crowland Abbey in 1198. The illuminations are attributed to Paris by Janet Backhouse, but not by Nigel Morgan. Vaughan had previously noted that the leaves from the Life of St Thomas and the Life of King Edward are of different sizes, and written by different scribes, neither of them Paris himself, so they are not likely to be part of the manuscript that Paris wrote of having lent to the Countess of Arundel; but that, "to judge from the script and the style of illumination" they are "very close copies of Matthew [Paris]'s original".
 Life of St Edmund, a French-verse history of the life of Edmund Rich, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1233 to 1240. Based on Paris' own Latin prose life of Rich, composed in the late 1240s, which drew on a collection of materials made at Pontigny, statements from Robert Bacon and Richard Wych, Bishop of Chichester, and other materials including from Paris' own histories. A 14th-century copy of the prose life has survived in British Library Cotton MS Julius D VI, folios 123–156v. One copy of the verse life that was in Cotton MS Vitellius D VIII was destroyed in the fire of 1731; but another copy was discovered in the early 1900s at Welbeck Abbey and is now in the British Library.
 Liber Experimentarius of Bernardus Silvestris, and other fortune-telling tracts. Bodleian Library, Oxford, Ms. Ashmole 304, 176 x 128 mm, ff72. Many illustrations: author portraits (many of ancient Greeks – Socrates, Plato, Euclid, Pythagoras), birds, tables and diagrams of geomantic significance. Several later copies of the text and illustrations survive. Provenance before 1602 unknown.
 Miscellaneous writings by John of Wallingford (the Younger), British Library, MS Cotton Julius D VII, 188 × 130 mm, ff. 134. 1247–58. Mostly scribed by John of Wallingford, another monk of St Albans, who also probably did some drawings. A portrait of John, a map of the British Isles, and a Christ in Majesty are all accepted as by Paris. The main text is a chronicle, highly derivative of Paris's. This was John's property, left to his final monastery at Wymondham.

Also, fragments of a Latin biography of Stephen Langton. Various other works, especially maps.

A panel painting on oak of St Peter, the only surviving part of a tabernacle shrine (1850 x 750 mm), in the Museum of Oslo University has been attributed to Paris, presumably dating from his visit in 1248. Local paintings are usually on pine, so he may have brought this with him, or sent it later.

Paris as an artist

In some of Paris' manuscripts, a framed miniature occupies the upper half of the page, and in others they are "marginal" – unframed and occupying the bottom quarter (approximately) of the page. Tinted drawings were an established style well before Paris, and became especially popular in the first half of the 13th century.  They were certainly much cheaper and quicker than fully painted illuminations.  The tradition of tinted drawings or outline drawings with ink supplemented by coloured wash was distinctively English, dating back to the Anglo-Saxon art of the mid-10th century, and connected with the English Benedictine Reform of the period. A strong influence on one branch of the style was the Carolingian Utrecht Psalter, which was at Canterbury from about 1000 to 1640.  This was copied in the 1020s in the Harley Psalter, and in the Eadwine Psalter of the mid-12th century.

Recent scholarship, notably that of Nigel Morgan, suggests that Paris' influence on other artists of the period has been exaggerated.  This is likely because so much more is known about him than other English illuminators of the period, who are mostly anonymous.  Most manuscripts seem to have been produced by lay artists in this period.  William de Brailes is shown with a clerical tonsure, but he was married, which suggests he had minor orders only.  The manuscripts produced by Paris show few signs of collaboration, but art historians detect a School of St Albans' surviving after Paris' death, influenced by him.

Paris' style suggests that it was formed by works from around 1200.  He was somewhat old-fashioned in retaining a roundness in his figures, rather than adopting the thin angularity of most of his artist contemporaries, especially those in London.  His compositions are very inventive; his position as a well-connected monk may have given him more confidence in creating new compositions, whereas a lay artist would prefer to stick to traditional formulae.  It may also reflect the lack of full training in the art of the period.  His colouring emphasises green and blue, and together with his characteristic layout of a picture in the top half of a page, is relatively distinctive. What are probably his final sketches are found in Vitae duorum Offarum in BL MS Cotton Nero D I.

Paris as a historian
From 1235, the point at which Wendover dropped his pen, Paris continued the history on the plan which his predecessors had followed. He derived much of his information from the letters of important people, which he sometimes inserts, but much more from conversation with the eyewitnesses of events.  Among his informants were Richard, Earl of Cornwall and King Henry III, with whom he appears to have been on intimate terms.

The king knew that Paris was writing a history, and wanted it to be as exact as possible. In 1257, in the course of a week's visit to St Albans, Henry kept the chronicler beside him night and day, "and guided my pen," says Paris, "with much goodwill and diligence." It is curious that the Chronica Majora gives so unfavourable an account of the king's policy.  Henry Richards Luard supposes that Paris never intended his work to be read in its present form.  Many passages of the autograph have written next to them, the note offendiculum, which shows that the writer understood the danger which he ran. On the other hand, unexpurgated copies were made in Paris's lifetime.  Although the offending passages are duly omitted or softened in his abridgment of his longer work, the Historia Anglorum (written about 1253), Paris's real feelings must have been an open secret.  There is no ground for the old theory that he was an official historiographer.

Naturalists have praised his descriptions of the English wildlife of his time,  brief though they are: in particular his valuable description of the first irruption into England in 1254 of the common crossbill.

Paris as cartographer
Outstanding among his other maps were (four versions of) a pilgrim itinerary charting the route from London to Rome in graphic form. A sequence of pictures of towns on the route marked the terminus of each day's travel, enabling the viewer to envisage and follow the whole journey rather like a comic strip – an achievement unprecedented elsewhere in the medieval world.

Studies of Matthew Paris
The relation of Matthew Paris's work to those of John de Celia (John of Wallingford) and Roger of Wendover may be studied in Henry Richards Luard's edition of the Chronica Majora (7 vols., Rolls series, 1872–1881), which contains valuable prefaces. The Historia Anglorum sive historia minor (1067–1253) has been edited by Frederic Madden (3 vols., Rolls series, 1866–1869).

Matthew Paris is sometimes confused with Matthew of Westminster, the reputed author of the Flores historiarum edited by Luard (3 vols., Rolls series, 1890). This work, compiled by various hands, is an edition of Matthew Paris, with continuations extending to 1326.

He wrote a life of St Edmund of Abingdon, sometime Archbishop of Canterbury.

He also wrote the Anglo-Norman La Estoire de Seint Aedward le Rei (the History of Saint Edward the King), which survives in a beautifully illuminated manuscript version, Cambridge, Cambridge University Library MS. Ee.3.59. The manuscript has had a varied publication history. Sections were printed in Francisque Michel's Chroniques Anglo-Normandes. Luard's edition for the Rolls series was severely criticized; it was re-edited for the Anglo-Norman Text Society by K. Y. Wallace. A facsimile for the Roxburghe Club was edited by M. R. James, and the whole manuscript has been digitalized and can be seen online.

Paris House at St Albans High School for Girls is named after him.

Notes

Bibliography
  (on manuscripts, and artistic style)

External links

Images
Stanford Digitized texts – Works by and about Paris, including Vaughan etc, in huge pdf files
JSTOR review of Vaughan book
Matthew Paris' Jerusalem pilgrim's travel guide: information, zoomable image British Library website
Art Bulletin article on his maps;Imagined Pilgrimage in the Itinerary Maps of Matthew Paris. 12/1/1999 by Connolly, Daniel K
Latin Chroniclers from the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Centuries:Matthew Paris from The Cambridge History of English and American Literature, Volume I, 1907–21.
Life of St Edward the Confessor, Cambridge Digital Library
Fully annotated copy of Matthew Paris's Claudius Map, with translations and transcriptions

1200 births
1259 deaths
Year of birth uncertain
People from St Albans
English Benedictines
English Christian monks
English chroniclers
English cartographers
English historians
Historians of the Catholic Church
Heraldists
Manuscript illuminators
Writers who illustrated their own writing
Medieval European scribes
People educated at St Albans School, Hertfordshire
Artist authors
Medieval English painters
13th-century Christian monks
13th-century painters
13th-century English artists
13th-century Latin writers
13th-century English writers
13th-century English people
13th-century historians
The Chronica  Majora is the seminal work of Matthew Paris, a member of the English Benedictine community of St Albans and long-celebrated historian. The work begins with Creation and contains annals down to the year of Paris' death of 1259. The Chronica has long been considered a contemporary attempt to present a universal history of the world.

Written in Latin, the illustrated autograph copy of the Chronica Majora survives in three volumes. The first two parts, covering Creation up to 1188 as well as the years 1189 to 1253 (MS 26 and MS 16), are contained in the Parker Library at Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The remainder of the Chronica, from 1254 until Matthew's death in 1259, is in the British Library, bound as Royal MS 14 C VII folios 157–218, following Matthew's Historia Anglorum (an abridgement of the Chronica covering the period from 1070 to 1253).

The Chronica is also renowned for its author's unprecedented use of archival and documentary material. These sources, amounting to over 200 items, include charters dating back to the eighth century, the rights of St Albans, a dossier relating to the canonisation of St Edmund of Canterbury and even a documented list of precious gems and artefacts in possession of St Albans. This exhaustive list of material required its own appendix which later became a separate volume, the Liber Additamentorum.

The Chronica is one of the most important surviving documents for the history of Latin Europe. Despite its focus on England, Matthew's work extends to regions as far afield as Norway, Hungary, and Sicily as well as the crusader states. It continues to be mined for its coverage of the Mongol invasions, its detailed report of the conflict between Frederick II and successive popes, as well as its commentary on the outbreak of the Barons’ War of 1258–1267. In addition to Matthew's literary abilities, he was an accomplished draughtsman. The surviving manuscripts are considered to be the foremost examples of English Gothic Manuscript, and they include some of the earliest surviving maps of Britain and the Holy Land.

Methodology 
During the late twelfth century, historians sought to differentiate between their own work and that of the monastic annal-writers. Gervase of Canterbury, whose work influenced Matthew Paris's writing, wrote the following in 1188:

"The historian proceeds diffusely and elegantly, whereas the chronicler proceeds simply, gradually and briefly. The Chronicler computes the years Anno Domini and months kalends, and briefly describes the actions of kings and princes which occurred at those times; he also commemorates events, portents and wonders."

Although Matthew stands alone in the breadth of his research and in his illustrations, his writing is characteristic of thirteenth-century attempts to synthesize and consolidate historical writing, by broadening the annalistic genre into a more universal form of expression. This process of evolution helps to account for the quasi-journalistic structure of the Chronica. Matthew set out to shape the work in a chronological order, but it developed into a multi-layered pastiche because he continued the monastic practices of revising and augmenting entries retrospectively.

Suzanne Lewis claims that Roger of Wendover, Matthew's predecessor, had a resounding influence on Matthew's works. Matthew's Chronica was largely a continuation of Roger's annals up to 1235 with the occasional addition of phrases and anecdotes for dramatic effect. However, Matthew went beyond what was customary by his very extensive inclusion of sources and evidences. Although it had long been usual to include the texts of documents in Christian historical narratives, the Chronica incorporated a hitherto unparalleled amount of such material. In addition, the number of changes made to the Chronica suggests that Matthew adapted and reworked much of his material, and in so molding it he enlarged both his own role as author and the historiographical nature of his writing.

Historiography 
Matthew's status as an historian has long been the subject of academic debate. While many maintain that Matthew never intended to be a "humble compiler of dated events" (as Lewis explains), some still regard his work as a cumbersome annalistic production.

Lewis observed that, in the Chronica, "the downfall of a great king must compete for attention with the birth of a two-headed calf." Matthew placed great importance on reference to portents and marvels, notably in his preface and in the closing pages of the Chronica. The latter contained a list of marvels which he claimed to have occurred over a fifty-year period.

Such reporting was undoubtedly rooted in the Latin models, such as Cicero, who influenced both Matthew and his contemporaries. In Classical writings a moral polemic was often achieved by presenting narratives exemplifying good and evil for the edification of the reader. This convention is woven into the Chronica with great dexterity by Matthew. He posed rhetorical questions concerning the deeds and actions of people and why such things warranted being written down. In the eyes of Matthew, who was a conservative Benedictine monk, signs and portents forewarned of famine and other miseries that would befall humanity in retribution for their sins. In essence Matthew believed that history, and the sinful actions that forged it, would prompt sinners to hasten quickly to seek God's forgiveness.

To Matthew, history was a matter of moral instruction and a means to provide guidance to the earthly and celestial well-being of God's people. Matthew saw the reporting of history as a platform through which the mistakes of men could be presented as a lesson from which to learn. From his treatment of the Jews to his coverage of the Mongol invasion, Matthew wrote from a position of self-interest. He tended to distort history and his source material in order to preserve the integrity of his abbey and kingdom. What has been agreed upon is that the Chronica, at the very least, provides insight into what history meant to contemporaries and how they used it to reconcile their place within their world. It provides an encyclopedic history of the affairs of his community and an unprecedented number of insightful sources and documents which would never otherwise have survived.

The Wandering Jew 

Matthew Paris's Chronica Majora contains one of the first extant descriptions and images of the Wandering Jew, a legendary figure who struck and scolded Jesus on his way to the crucifixion, thereby becoming doomed to walk the earth until the Second Coming.

The drawing of the Wandering Jew, likely done by Matthew Paris himself, embodies the paradoxical theological position of Jews in early and medieval Christianity as espoused by Augustine.  Standing hunched over with a mattock (a symbol associated with Cain) behind Jesus as he progresses to Calvary, the depiction of the Wandering Jew represents the idea of Jewish sinfulness fixed throughout time as a contrast to Christ's upright moral progression. The drawing also visualizes the notion of Christian supersessionism.

Editions 
 Matthew Parker (1571); 1589 Zurich Edition at (Bayerische StaatsBibliothek digital), (Google); (1606)
 William Wats (1641); 1644 Paris Edition at (Google); 1684 edition at (Hathi Trust)
 Henry Richards Luard, for the Rolls series (1872–80): vol 1, vol 2, vol 3, vol 4, vol 5, vol 6 (the Additamenta), vol 7 (Index and Glossary)
Felix Liebermann, for the MGH (1888) (Excerpts) Link

Translations 

 English translation by John Allen Giles (1852–54), vol 1, vol 2, vol 3 [1235 to 1259 only, from Wats, with the continuation to 1273]

Further reading 
 Richard Vaughan: Matthew Paris, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Life and Thought, New ser. 6 (Cambridge, 1958),  (Internet Archive)
 Richard Vaughan (ed. and tr): The Chronicles of Matthew Paris: Monastic Life in the Thirteenth Century (Gloucester, 1984).
 Richard Vaughan: The Illustrated Chronicles of Matthew Paris. Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1993. 
 Suzanne Lewis: The Art of Matthew Paris in the Chronica Majora. University of California Press, 1987 (California Studies in the History of Art) ( online excerpt, about the elephant)

References

13th-century history books
13th-century illuminated manuscripts
Illuminated histories
Manuscripts of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge
13th-century Latin books
English chronicles
Frederick II, Holy Roman Emperor The historian's fallacy is an informal fallacy that occurs when one assumes that decision makers of the past viewed events from the same perspective and having the same information as those subsequently analyzing the decision. It is not to be confused with presentism, a mode of historical analysis in which present-day ideas (such as moral standards) are projected into the past. The idea was first articulated by British literary critic Matthew Arnold in 1880 and later named and defined by American historian David Hackett Fischer in 1970.

Concept
The idea that a critic can make erroneous interpretations of past works because of knowledge of subsequent events was first articulated by Matthew Arnold. In his 1880 essay The Study of Poetry, he wrote:

The course of development of a nation’s language, thought, and poetry, is profoundly interesting; and by regarding a poet’s work as a stage in this course of development we may easily bring ourselves to make it of more importance as poetry than in itself it really is, we may come to use a language of quite exaggerated praise in criticising it; in short, to overrate it. So arises in our poetic judgments the fallacy caused by the estimate which we may call historic.

The concept of the historian's fallacy was named and outlined in 1970 by David Hackett Fischer, who suggested it was analogous to William James's psychologist's fallacy. Fischer did not suggest that historians should refrain from retrospective analysis in their work, but he reminded historians that their subjects were not able to see into the future. As an example, he cited the well-known argument that Japan's surprise attack on Pearl Harbor should have been predictable in the United States because of the many indications that an attack was imminent. What this argument overlooks, Fischer, citing the work of Roberta Wohlstetter, states that there were innumerable conflicting signs which suggested possibilities other than an attack on Pearl Harbor. Only in retrospect do the warning signs seem obvious; signs that pointed in other directions tend to be forgotten. (See also hindsight bias.)

In the field of military history, historians sometimes use what is known as the "fog of war technique" in hopes of avoiding the historian's fallacy. In this approach, the actions and decisions of the historical subject (such as a military commander) are evaluated primarily on the basis of what that person knew at the time, and not on future developments that the person could not have known. According to Fischer, this technique was pioneered by the American historian Douglas Southall Freeman in his influential biographies of Robert E. Lee and George Washington.

See also 
 
 
 
 
 
Presentism -- Anachronistically introducing present-day ideas and perspectives into depictions or interpretations of the past.

References

Further reading
 Fischer, David Hackett. Historians' Fallacies: Toward a Logic of Historical Thought. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1970, pp. 209–13.

External links 

Historian's Fallacy Fallacious, the Ultimate Collection of 300 Logical Fallacies

Informal fallacies
Historiography
1970 introductions