Primary Source Commentary

Description

1000-word-long commentary on Gildas’s ‘The Fall of Britain’

To what extent does Gildas’s work support the ‘collapse of the Roman Empire’ model and to what extent does his work support the more gradual ‘transformation of the Roman Empire’ model?

As a reminder, the basic questions include:

Who made this text? What else do we know about them? And for whom did they make it?

What is this source? Which genre is it? What information is it trying to convey?

When was this source made? What else was going on at that time?

Where was this source made? What else was going on in that place?

Why is this source useful for historians?

To receive maximum points, be sure to substantiate your claims with reference to specific portions of the text. Please feel free to use (and cite) secondary sources as well, in footnotes. Chicago Style is preferred, but any comprehensible citation system will be accepted.

Rubric

These grading criteria assess the primary commentary in relation to a combination of the course learning objectives (as detailed on the syllabus).

To receive a point value from a given band, an essay must fulfil the requirements for that band, as listed in the table below.

The commentary remarks on who wrote the source (if known), who the intended audience may have been, when the source was written and where it was written. The commentary also accurately summarizes the content of the source.

The commentary clearly and accurately identifies the genre of the source. The commentary demonstrates knowledge of wider social, political, and economic context in the period when the source was produced. Commentaries that receive the highest marks may also compare their main source with other primary sources.

The commentary suggests what the source’s creator was hoping to achieve by producing it. The commentary also identifies how this source is useful to modern historians.

Commentaries in this band also recognize the difference between reliability and utility. (A source may misrepresent some contemporary events or persons and still be very useful for historians trying to understand mindsets and agendas.)

The commentary makes accurate inferences from the source. The commentary cites specific parts of the source clearly (whether through direct quotation, line numbers, or some other