Page:Luther's correspondence and other contemporary letters 1507-1521.djvu/10



History is now read more than ever before from the original sources. Contemporary documents give both the most vivid, and in the deepest sense, the most veracious narrative. Even when they are mistaken in point of fact, or intentionally falsified, they reveal important truths, showing what the author believed, or wanted to be believed. If they distort fact they can never belie the spirit of the times. But even objective error is far less common than might be supposed. If a man has authentic information to give, the strongest bias on his part is a matter of secondary importance. He may color facts, impute wrong motives, shade here and lighten there, but the free invention, or even suppression of important facts by strictly contemporary witnesses is almost unknown. Minor misstatements can easily be corrected; the total impression is more true to life, and therefore both more veracious and more graphic, than that which can be given by any secondary narrative, no matter how great its erudition and art.

By the great Ranke and his school the sources of history most esteemed were public documents — the treaty, the legislative act, the contract, the charter, the edict. There is now a reaction from this method. The memoir, the journal, the private letter are coming into favor again, if only as the necessary interpreters of the public act. But beyond this they are seen to convey a deeper psychological and personal meaning. The epistle, in particular, enjoys the double advantage of being written, like the public document, on the spot, and of revealing, like the memoir, the real inward attitude of an actor in the drama.

The present work aims to set before the public the history, as told by the participants and eye-witnesses themselves in all the unreserve of private correspondence, of the most momentous crisis in the annals of Europe. It is impossible