How Paul the Deacon made history
Paul the Deacon Historia Langobardorum (Photo credit: Wikipedia ) Historians owe a lot to Paul the Deacon . Born into a noble Lombard family, Paul was given the best possible education for that largely unschooled day. He became a monk and used his learning to record the history and myths of his people, the Lombards . His book was one of the first German histories authored by a German, although even then it was written in Latin, the language of scholarship. Since most of its sources have vanished, our knowledge would be poorer without it. It was copied and recopied into the fifteenth century. Early in his life, Paul's skill as a writer caused a duchess to ask him to expand Eutropius' History of Rome. Paul added six books to it and this was widely copied during the Middle Ages. Later his pen may have helped win the release of his brother, who was held captive for his part in an uprising. Paul wrote an elegy to mollify Charlemagne's anger. When this did not seem to work...