Ok, ok, fine. Why can’t an event usher a new historical period but it can belong to one or another. A thread on the ontology of the past. 1/

First: a disclaimer. There are multiple ways of explaining this. I‘m going to use a structuralist method, because it highlights the dichotomy well. But it can also be done using other methodologies of history. Even, and I can’t believe I‘m saying this, Hegel. Ok, off we go. 2/

Disclaimer 2: I will use certain labels. Will try to provide definitions to those that differ from common understanding but let us not forget it’s Twitter and shortcuts will happen. Also I will use plague as an example but it can be done with other events. 3/

Ok, what is, e.g. a pandemic that happened in the past? It‘s what we would call an event. Structuraly we could use the term historical fact, which can be placed inside various chronologies (AD, CE, AH and so on) and which can be analysed in terms of its causes and consequences 4/

Historians will use sources and suprasource information to perform this analysis. They will do source critique and argue about the causes, effects, bah, even the very existence of an event! Historiography is the domain where those discussions happen. Historiography ≠ history. 5/

To order the chronologies used to place the events in a time-structured way we use periods. „Midde Ages“. „Early Modernity“. „Antiquity“. They are historiographical not historical concepts. History is entirely possible without them just, and I am sad to admit it, bit clumsy. 6/

Thus, a particular pandemic, let’s say the Justinianic Plague, can belong to a period. A historical event is placed in a historiographic structure. I happen to work on that time and would place it in a period of „Late Antiquity“. It’s my, informed, hostoriographical choice. 7/

But other historians can analyse the available information and place it in „Early Middle Ages“ or „Antiquity“. This placing and the resulting discussions will even help our knowledge production, i.e. our understanding of that event. But it will not change the event itself. 8/

You see where this is going? An event cannot „cause“ or „end“ a period because they belong to two different categories. Events can mark periods *in historiographical interpretations* but they don’t cause them because periods have to first be forged in historians‘ discussions. 9/

Now I know that one can argue with this structuralis explanation because it presupposes a quite strict division between historical and historiographical realms. But even in methodologies that don’t (like postmodernism e.g.) the basic tenet will hold true. 10/

And while the discussions to what period does the Black Death belong can be valid (a different question if they are useful) the Black Death did not usher in the Renaissance. It did work as a catalysis for numerous processes, sure. But it couldn’t have ended a period that... 11/

hasn’t been really invented yet (although Petrarch did use Dark Ages in 1330s). If anything (welcome to the historiographical twist!) the Black Plague started not ended the process that resulted in the birth of the concept of the „Middle Ages“ 12/

TL;DR: a plague (a historical event) belongs to a different category than a period (a historiographical ordering system) and thus cannot „usher“ it but can be placed within or outside of it. FIN

P.S. This thread can also be summarized like this:
https://twitter.com/anotheraspirin/status/1246439953090981889?s=21 https://twitter.com/anotheraspirin/status/1246439953090981889