Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/537300
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 5 JULY 2015 24 Opinion A ctually, historians not agreeing is not such a problem. History teachers are accustomed to historians hardly ever agreeing. By its very nature history is not a quest to find the ultimate truth, it is a never-ending investigation and the most a historian can hope for is to provide a valid interpretation based on reliable evidence. But there are then those moments in academic studies of history where historians do not just provide mildly different interpretations, but disagree in a spectacular way, and that is when history becomes terribly interesting and exciting. This is what makes history special and these strong disagreements provide great learning opportunities in the classroom which good history teachers use to their full potential. Here's an example from European history that has been turned into a school history activity. I particularly enjoy going through the Battalion 101 exercise with my teacher trainees because it provides excellent pedagogical approaches on how to deal with historians' disagreements. Battalion 101 was a troop of German soldiers who were like the German home guard in many ways – middle-aged men who took care of low key military tasks during World War II. They were definitely not the SS troops, however on one fateful day they came across a village and massacred all the villagers because they were Jews. Historians have longed asked: 'why did they do it?' It is also similarly a good idea to have a question when teaching history in schools, it helps to create an inquiry and focus pupils' thought. In this case why did a group of German men, most of them just ordinary policemen, teachers, postmen, milkmen and tailors in their everyday lives, murder all the villagers? Historians give very opposing reasons for an answer. One historian, Christopher Browning, says that they did this because they were ordinary men. Like most people they took the easy option, doing what everybody else did to protect themselves. The men of Battalion 101 weren't evil, or even Nazis for the most part. They were victims of an extraordinary situation. On the other hand Daniel Goldhagen's interpretation of this event strongly disagrees with Browning's. Goldhagen vehemently asserts that it is rubbish to excuse them. You cannot blame the circumstances they were in. They knew what they were doing and did it willingly because at the time they believed it was right to kill Jews. A clear case of historians being poles apart in their interpretation of the same event. The Maltese Christian continuity debate Now in the case of Malta we have a number of historical incidents and explanations where historians are not in agreement, but perhaps none so strongly as the one on whether Christianity continued uninterrupted from the 1st century right up to today, or whether there was a time in history from the 1st century to today when the Maltese islands were not Christian. For hundreds of years, Gian Francesco Abela's idea that Maltese Christianity can be traced back directly and continuously to the 1st century, from the coming of St Paul right up to today, prevailed. However, medieval historian Godfrey Wettinger dropped a bombshell in the 1970s when he started to present his interpretation, which basically said that there is nothing to indicate the continuity of Christianity from the late 9th century to the 11th century on the Maltese Islands. In all probability Christianity died out during Arab times except for the occasional captive, and the local Maltese integrated with the Arab newcomers and became Muslim. It is difficult to uproot one strong paradigm and replace it with another, especially when there is strong emotional investment behind one or the other. It is inconceivable for religious Catholics to even contemplate that their own countrymen and women converted to another religion and, to top it all, became Muslim! So this interpretation was resisted and up to quite recently no history teacher ever tackled the issue in the classroom and for almost 40 years all history teachers opted to ignore Wettinger's interpretation and continued to teach the 17th century paradigm offered by Gian Francesco Abela and countless others. The Battalion 101 exercise gave me the idea to try and tackle the problem in a similar way and I produced a pack published by the History Teachers' Association. Similarly to the Battalion 101 exercise, pupils have to analyse the evidence and take a stand as to which historian is the most reliable and has the strongest claim. Historians dig in their heels But the work for this pack was carried out in 2009 and published in 2010, precisely the time when Tristia ex Melitogaudo came out. This book by Stanley Fiorini, Horatio Vella and Joseph Brincat challenged for the first time Wettinger's interpretation. I remember I excitedly attended the first presentation of the book where the now famous poem by the 12th century exiled poet in Malta and written in Greek, was presented by Stanley Fiorini and Horatio Vella. I was very curious to see what the authors had found in this poem, for the poster announcing the event boasted a title which claimed, no less, "Evidence of Christian continuity during Arab times"! Wow, what an amazing declaration, for up to that point in time, it had been just opinions and extrapolations of what might have happened, and no hard evidence as such. Apart from Wettinger has been vindicated, but I would like to receive the newspaper MaltaToday for a period of one year. Name & Surname.................................................................. Telephone: ........................................ Address ...................................................................................... E-mail: ........................................ FOR €67 YO FOR €67 YO FOR €67 Y U CAN RECEIVE THE MALTATO ECEIVE THE MALTATO ECEIVE THE MALTA DAY, FOR A PERIOD OF ONE YEAR. Send a cheque payable to MediaToday to: Subscriptions, MediaToday, Vjal il-Rihan, San Gwann, SGN 9016 The newspapers are delivered by post and therefore subject to the usual postal timings. Normally, MaltaToday should arrive on Monday. SUBSCRIPTION FORM Godfrey Wettinger sealed the debate on the continuity of Christianity in medieval Malta, and yet historians still disagree. So what we do about that, asks Prof. Yosanne Vella Medieval historian Godfrey Wettinger