I am trying to understand how historians are able to look at writings from the ancient and middle ages and decide how much of it is close to the actual truth. This seems to be a difficult job since most early writings seem to be about the rulers rather than the lives of ordinary folk (?). I am also guessing that common folk didn't do much writing during that time, or did not leave much first hand accounts of their lives? If we are relying entirely on the official scribes or poets who have a vested interest (job security?) to create exaggerated accounts of their kings and their deeds, how do we know the actual scenario? It appears that the Realism movement came much later after which there has been much more .. well .. realism in early accounts, paintings, sculptures etc.
Or am I getting this all wrong and there were actually accounts from that time which tried to provide a honest account of the times? Thanks!
Eastern_Mountains,
You're certainly correct about there being a problem with sources from the ancient world and Middle Ages, and often, at least 90% of the population wasn't able to record their stories in written documents. For most of history, our only sources on the common folk are census records, bookkeeping, and leftover artifacts. While sometimes the writing we do have is a bit of a lost cause, here's some ways we try to get good information:
First and foremost, you want to compare the writing to concrete archaeological evidence. If a text says that a massacre took place in a certain location, and you dig up hundreds of damaged human skeletons nearby, you can probably assume that the text is accurate. Unfortunately, that's often not possible. If this is the case, we have to move on to option two.
Option two is we cross reference! For example, imagine you're looking at an account from the Roman writer Seutonius. Now, we know Suetonius is prone to exaggeration and embellishment, so we look at records of the same subject in Tacitus. Is the information the same? What about in the writing of Livy? What does he tell us about this subject? If the information is consistent, that lends credibility to the account. It should be noted though, that sometimes multiple authors are getting their information from the same flawed source, in which case this can become a problem. The best case scenario is that all the accounts are the same and can be traced back to multiple primary sources.
So you've done your cross referencing and you still aren't sure of its validity. Your next move is a study of the culture surrounding the subject, as well as reading up on the author. Who was this person? What biases did they have? How could that affect their writing? And very importantly, was the author writing at the time of the event, or is this a later telling? Additionally, what do we know about the culture at the time? To continue with the Rome example, let's say you're reading a story about the sexual depravity of the emperor Caligula as written by Tacitus. It's important for an objective reading that we understand that Tacitus does not like Caligula, and is likely biased against him. If we also understand the culture of Imperial Rome, we know that exaggerated stories of sexual perversion were a common means of damning and discrediting leaders. While an overwhelming amount of evidence points to Caligula's sadism and madness, we have to temper our assessment with our outside knowledge, and assume that these stories are somewhat twisted or sensationalized. Simply put, you have to ask yourself, does all of this story make logical sense based on our knowledge of the culture it originated in? If not, why? What reasons could explain this discrepancy? Does the author have a reason to be dishonest or mistaken?
Other ways to authenticate a story are to look at the author's larger body of work. Do they make a habit of including religious events or magical happenings in their "history" (this is especially problematic in the medieval period)? Are there known factual errors in their other works? If so, these are red flags.
Other things to think about are whether or not the account can be clearly traced back to the original source. If the story appears out of nowhere four hundred years after the event, that's a problem. If the work was comissioned, the patron also needs to be studied to find their motivations. Was this to improve their image? To slander a political opponent? Lastly, you have to ask yourself if what you're reading makes logical sense. If a text sings outrageous praises of a king without any criticism, you can assume it's at least somewhat spun towards the positive. No one can be that perfect. Likewise, the complete character assassination of a queen might be a result of historical misogyny. The odds are low that she killed babies for fun, right?
In the end, there are many things we may never know. I'm sure many authors tried or wanted to try to be honest in their accounts. Unfortunately, much of history was (and is) full of propaganda, political pressures, personal rivalry, and books written by the winning side. We can only do our best to put the pieces together.
I hope this helped!
(Just a disclaimer: this is based on the my own experience, what I've seen from others, and what I was taught. This is not exhaustive, nor is it the only way to do things.)
Sources for more info:
u/techno_milk has a great answer for how we identify areas of truth and distortion in primary sources - one issue in handling ancient sources is that, often, all you've got is distortion, and sources written after the event, by people with imperfect or very limited knowledge, with a clear agenda in the present.
One key way we respond to that is by changing the sorts of questions we ask - in particular, moving the focus from the veracity of the stories in question, which is usually either completely unknowable or very probably zero, to the people telling them. Out of all the stories they could have told, why this one? If they've changed or made up certain details, why? What does that tell us about them, their agendas, and their view of these events?
This is largely a development of what's called the 'Cultural Turn', which really took off in history from the 1960s. To simplify a very complex bank of theory, post-Cultural-Turn history puts much more emphasis on perception, and understands that most of the interesting and important issues in history are less about what was objectively true and more about how people, events and institutions were perceived. Bundled up with this is a growing awareness of how much perception shapes reality - not only of how certain hugely important concepts (such as 'authority', 'status', 'legitimacy', 'normality' and 'deviancy') only really exist in the realm of perception, but also of how people's ideology and view of the world makes a real difference to the actions they take.
A great example of how this has been applied in recent scholarship comes with the story of Romulus and Remus. We have the story in a number of accounts - chiefly the first-century Roman historian Livy and the Greek historians Dionysius and Plutarch - and it's patently fantastical - the twins' divine parentage, being raised by wolves and eventually founding a city with an act of fratricide map nicely to many other mythological traditions but clearly don't represent plausible events. It's very unusual for modern scholars to even try to engage with the 'reality' or not of this story - the one notable and very elderly exception is the Italian archaeologist Andrea Carandini. We simply don't have any primary evidence to engage with the question of whether there existed a historical 'Romulus' and 'Remus', or to decide if there even is a grain of truth to the story.
Instead, scholars use the stories to talk about the Romans' self-perception. Mary Beard is one of the best and best-known exponents of this for all areas of Roman history, and handles Romulus and Remus in her 2015 book SPQR. She talks about the importance of divine ancestry for the Romans, how they used being 'raised by wolves' as part of their self-image as tough, hard, simple people in contrast to the more 'civilised' peoples they encountered, particularly in the Greek world, and how the idea of Rome being founded on the killing of a brother had resonance to them, particularly in Livy's time when recent Roman history was full of civil wars. All of this helps us to understand how the Romans thought about themselves, and fed into a self-perception that would have had a real effect on the decisions that Romans - particularly those in power - made in going about their lives.
You can therefore get a lot out of ancient stories even when you know, or strongly suspect, that the stories you're being fed aren't true. It's about changing the focus and asking the right questions.
EDIT: I've also just come across this excellent post from u/snapshot52, which approaches a similar issue from a completely different and fascinating perspective - how to handle apparently implausible or contradictory oral tradition from Indigenous groups.