People ask me all the time why I am so concerned with looking back at the past. They say it like it is a criticism, and usually proceed to tell me that it is the here and now that matters, not what people did or thought 500 years ago.
To me, looking back is a natural thing to do. Every moment has a past, present, and future. Choices in the moment lead to the next, and so the future emerges out of the past. Birth, death, and rebirth is the law of the universe. The world we live in has its roots in the past, from the laws that govern us to ongoing conflicts and research. We can learn from the stories of the past to make sense and meaning of our lives.
Novelist L P Hartley called the past a foreign country and said of it, ‘they do things differently there’. I see the past not as a foreign country and more as the backdrop of our lives today. Like the seasons come around, the same but not the same, history repeats itself, the same but not the same. Mark Twain said: ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, it rhymes’.
From my earliest childhood, I have had a strong feeling for the past and reverence for the Renaissance. Renaissance means rebirth. The Renaissance was a period of cultural revolution unlike any other, before or since. Social and economic circumstances have always driven revolutions, and these were present in the Renaissance, but to a lesser extent. What ultimately drove the Renaissance was the birth of new ideas connected to spirituality and individual faith. No other cultural revolution lasted as long or was as far-reaching. It was one of the catalysts for the Reformation, the religious movement that split the Catholic Church and saw many people martyred for their beliefs. But why and where did these ideas spring from?
In 1453 the Turks sacked Constantinople, present-day Istanbul. Manuscripts that hadn’t been available before began to trickle into Europe at a time when the printing press was taking off, and they quickly spread. The writings of Plato and Aristotle and other middle eastern philosophers sparkled in contrast to the dogma of the Catholic Church that taught you could only know God through an intermediary. The Greek myths told the stories of many gods and goddesses that reflect the multi-faceted nature of mankind.
The ideas that emerged during the Renaissance are referred to as the new learning, but actually, they were old teachings that went back thousands of years. However, these stories were new to ordinary people hearing them for the first time in Europe, and they had an impact, causing a dramatic split in society.
Historians and a growing number of people tend to compare current times with the Renaissance. This is partly due to similarities in the role of the Internet and the printing press and growing nationalism. In modern times, however, we tend to think of progressive thinking as only associated with new ideas. There is a tendency amongst the establishment to rip up the old and implement new strategies, especially within the education system. But knowledge is acquired over centuries, and new knowledge has to be underpinned with old knowledge.
The split between old and new inspired me to write these lines of dialogue.
‘I say a translation of the Bible into English would lead us away from the true word of God for it would incite all kinds of interpretations.’ Wolsey’s hand came down in a chopping motion to kill the conversation.
‘Translations are revelations,’ Wyatt whispered to Anne, and they giggled.
History tells us about ourselves. Not just our cultural selves as televised history does, but our more primitive selves. Ultimately, none of us can escape this because everything in life must be accounted for. We can only go forward and in doing so we meet the consequences of our past choices.