The Saint and the Count: A Case Study for Reading like a Historian

“The Saint and the Count is a book to place in the hands of untrained readers who regard historical primary sources as either transparent accounts of a factual past or dismiss them as biased and unusable fabrications. In other words, undergraduate history students, both beginners and advanced, will benefit from this gem of a book. In a deft and lucid fashion, and with great wit and verve, Leah Shopkow demonstrates how key questions and processes of historical reading can distil knowledge even from unreliable and opaque texts. Caution: side effects when reading this book may include feelings of curiosity and pleasure and the desire to become a medievalist.” Lendol G. Calder, Augustana College

“Leah Shopkow’s The Saint and the Count is a tour de force in exploring and clarifying the complexities of medieval sources. This book is an excellent introduction to both medieval history and the medieval historian’s craft. Written to be accessible to all audiences and with newly translated sources for readers to examine, The Saint and the Count would be a welcome text for any class on the European Middle Ages or for a course in historical methodology.” Amy Livingstone, Ball State University