What is History?

History is the set of stories we tell about ourselves. The stories can be vast; from the dawn of creation to the last second of time; they can spread across continents even planets or be played out in a tiny attic room; they can survey the lives of millions over thousands of years or focus on 30 seconds in one life. They can be told by the most distinguished, ancient professor writing in a plush study surrounded by the finest set of history books ever collected in one place or they can be told by a ragged old drunk sat on a step shouting them out to no-one in particular.
History is not the record of what actually happened, 'facts' do not exist, and the 'truth' is constructed by the teller of the story.
We can be sure that something has probably happened, we can be fairly certain of when it happened, but as to how it really played out and why those events actually happened - that we cannot possibly know. All we can know, indeed all that we have to go on, is how that event is remembered. In the case of Medieval History we have chronicles, charters, and whole books that claim to be the true history of events, these are called 'primary sources' and they come to us in manuscripts, slips of parchment and rolled up records. They are written in the language of the time and place, in Western Europe, for example, they are usually in Latin, although large numbers of vernacular records also exist.
They form the best record we have of events, in part because they are closest in time and place to those events, but mostly because they are all we have. This means that nothing is certain, we have a primary source written down by someone who remembers those events in a particular way, who has contructed 'the truth' from what he or she remembers - or chooses to remember. But is that not the case in all things?
Reality is constructed by the individual as a way of making sense of the world, as a means of surviving its horrifying, stupid, beautiful and inspiring wonder. Once you embrace the fact that you create the reality of the world every day in your own head then you can start to shape the parts you have some control over to make it the way you want it to be.
The purpose of history is to provide you with the building blocks that enable you to construct that reality. The things you as an individual remember, the things we as a community of individuals remember, enable us to construct the house, the street, the town, the country, the continent and the world we live in every day when we wake up.
Without history we are without collective memory, without collective memory we cannot attempt to understand the world we live in, without trying to understanding the world we live in we are no better than a rock rolling through empty space.
Long Live History!!