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Umkämpfte Unwahrheit
Evidenzpraktiken und die Aushandlung von Fake, Fälschung und Falschheit im europäischen Mittelalter
Abstract The question of whether or to which extent fake news is a genuinely modern phenomenon remains controversial. In addition to conceptual explanations of fake news, falsehood, forgery and ‘half-truths’, this contribution outlines a methodological approach which understands fake news not only as a priori ‘false’ news, but rather as factual assertions that were declared and communicated as false by contemporary observers in a particular public sphere. Against this background, the question arises under which conditions these attributions met with acceptance or rejection. It is therefore necessary to focus on the specific practices of evidence production that served to enforce claims of validity. In this context, techniques are presented that were used in the Middle Ages to provide evidence for the ‘falsity’ of specific claims. At the same time, it will be shown that the struggles for truth among contemporary observers also stimulated reflections on the demarcation between true and false statements. Literature is a special medium of observation that was also involved in the differentiation of specific forms of falsity, such as forgery, fakes, or fraud. Medieval authors also made the defamatory effects of circulating false statements their subject. This shows that the negotiation of falsehood in the Middle Ages could also be accompanied by reflections on the social effects of fake news.
Keywords fake news; post-truth; competing truths; evidence practices; rhetoric
